Historical Setting and Genre, The Social Setting of Apocalypses, and The Seer's Vision of an Unbroken World
[In the following essays, Thompson provides background on the apocalypse genre and its social setting and discusses the seer's vision of the world and its boundaries.]
THE LOCAL HISTORICAL SETTING
[Now] I shall discuss in detail aspects of the local situation in and to which John writes the Book of Revelation. Here we need only some basic orientation to the origins of the book so that it will not appear as a floating specter from the past. As a way of beginning to orient to the book, I shall consider briefly those hoary questions—Where? When? Who? In what situation?
THE PLACE
The writer of the Book of Revelation identifies precisely where both he and his audience reside. He writes from the small island of Patmos, one of the Sporades Islands in the Aegean Sea about thirty-seven miles south and west of Miletus, on the western coast of Asia Minor (roughly, present-day Turkey). He writes to churches in seven major cities in Asia, a Roman province situated along the western coast of Asia Minor.
Asia Minor, specifically the western part of Asia Minor where John and his audience were located, was one of the most significant geographical areas in the development of early Christianity. In the fifties of the first century the apostle Paul carried on missionary work in this area (see 1 Cor. 16:19). Letters and tracts such as Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and the Pastoral Epistles indicate the continued influence of Paul in this geographical area. The author of 1 Peter writes to the churches of Asia and other provinces in Asia Minor. New Testament writings associated with John—the Gospel and the three letters as well as the Book of Revelation—also, according to tradition, originated in Asia at the city of Ephesus. At the beginning of the second century Ignatius of Antioch writes letters to five churches in Asia as he travels to die in Rome. Through these writings we know of Christian groups in at least eleven cities of the Asian province by the beginning of the second century ce. Moreover, these churches are associated with major apostolic figures such as Paul, Peter, and John.
The province of Asia was also important in the Roman Empire. To become proconsul of that province was a sign of a successful public career. Asia was rich in natural resources and manufacturing—and therefore in taxes. It was located strategically in the empire with regards to both trade routes and military action on the eastern border. Many of the three hundred or more cities in the province of Asia nurtured cultural activities and became centers for libraries, museums, and spectacular monuments. In brief, the locale of the Book of Revelation is significant in both Christian and Roman history.
THE AUTHOR
According to the Christian apologist Justin Martyr (d. 165 ce), the apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation (Dia. Tryph. 81.4). A few years after Justin, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, writes that the apostle John, son of Zebedee, wrote both the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John (Haer. 5.30). Most of the church fathers, though not all, follow Justin and Irenaeus (see Kümmel 1975, 469-72). Dionysius of Alexandria (third century) states, however, that “some indeed of those before our time rejected and altogether impugned the book, examining it chapter by chapter and declaring it to be unintelligible and illogical, and its title false. For they say that it is not John's, no, nor yet an apocalypse [unveiling], since it is veiled by its great thick curtain of unintelligibility” (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 7.25). Dionysius is more temperate towards Revelation than these unnamed impugners, but he concludes for stylistic and linguistic reasons that the son of Zebedee could not have written the book. Rather, it was written by someone else named John who was buried at Ephesus. Thus, some of the church fathers who assumed apostolic authorship of the Gospel of John did not give the same status to the writer of Revelation. Modern scholarship tends to side with them. The style, vocabulary, and theology of the Apocalypse are sufficiently different from the Gospel of John as to make one conclude that common authorship is unlikely and that the apostle did not write the Apocalypse (see Schüssler Fiorenza 1985, 85-113).
The personal identity of John will probably never be discovered. The name was common in the early church; perhaps he was one of those by that name affiliated with the Christian community at Ephesus. More can be said about John's social identity. He is probably an early Christian prophet who wandered either randomly or by prescribed circuit among the churches of Asia. From other sources we know of such an “office” in the early church. Paul places it high on his list of church offices, second only to “apostles” (1 Cor. 12:28). Elsewhere it is associated with the office of teaching (see Acts 13:1). The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, an early second-century “handbook” for Christians, understands prophets to be itinerants who go from one congregation to another (Did. 11-13). John claims authority as a leader in the churches and comes into conflict with other “prophetic authorities” (see Jezebel, Balaam, Nicolaitans in Rev. 2-3). Still debated are questions about the organizational elaboration of that office: for example, was he a “head prophet” among a school of prophets? Did he head a conventicle splinter group of Christians in each of these cities? Did he deliver his apocalypse to a community of prophets in the churches rather than to all Christians? However one answers those questions, the author of the Book of Revelation was an early Christian prophet who proclaimed a message of revealed knowledge to the seven churches in the province of Asia (see Yarbro Collins 1984, 34-50).
THE DATE
The author of the Book of Revelation does not give much of a clue about the particular time in which he is writing. In contrast to several references to specific places, the seer's references to the historical situation are either nonexistent or so veiled as to give no certain information to the reader today. Chapters 13, 17, and 18 in the Book of Revelation refer to emperors and to the city of Rome, so that we may be certain that the book was written in the time of the empire; but even Revelation 17, which elaborates on the seven-headed beast (Rev. 13:1) by specific reference to emperors past, present, and future, gives no certain information about the precise time of the writing.
From chapter 17 we can narrow the time down somewhat. The great harlot, referred to earlier in 14:8, is judged. Upon her forehead is written “a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of earth's abominations’” (17:5). She is seated upon a scarlet beast “which was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns” (17:3). Later the seven heads are identified as seven hills (17:9), and the city that sits upon the seven hills “has dominion over the kings of the earth” (17:18). These two characteristics of the city/woman—power over the earth and “sitting” upon seven hills—identifies her clearly as Rome, the capital of the empire (see Caird 1966, 216). In other words, Rome and all those under her will be destroyed in the pouring out of the seventh bowl (Rev. 16:17-21, cf. 17:15-18).
In connection with Rome's destruction there is an allusion to the “return” of one of the emperors. There are three versions of this return: (1) “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition” (17:8); (2) “The dwellers on earth … will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and is not and is to come” (17:8); and (3) “As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth [king] but it belongs to the seven [kings], and it goes to perdition” (17:11). This “coming again” of one of the kings alludes to the Emperor Nero, around whom developed, after his death (or flight), an expectation that he would come again from the East and fight against some or all of the Roman Empire. In Jewish and Christian literature this “revived Nero” is sometimes portrayed as both anti-Roman and an opponent of the chosen people. For example, in the fourth Sibylline Oracle Nero is referred to as follows: “Then the strife of war being aroused will come to the west, and the fugitive from Rome will also come, brandishing a great spear, having crossed the Euphrates with many myriads” (Sib. Or. 4.137-39). In the fifth Sibylline Oracle Nero will be destructive “even when he disappears”: “Then he will return declaring himself equal to God. But he will prove that he is not” (Sib. Or. 5.33-34, cf. 5.93-110). In the Book of Revelation, the Nero legend is associated with the beast from the abyss and with the “eighth” king who is at the same time “one of the seven.” He is one of the evil end-time figures who will make war against the Lamb and his followers (17:14). Given the presence of this legend, the Book of Revelation could not have been written in its present form before 68 ce when Nero died, but the legend could have spread quickly after Nero's death.
The identification of Rome with Babylon also provides some evidence for dating the Book of Revelation. In Jewish literature, the enemy Rome is designated Edom, Kittim, and Egypt, as well as Babylon. For the most part, however, the identity with Babylon occurs after 70 ce, that is, Rome is called Babylon after she destroys Jerusalem and the temple. Yarbro Collins thus concludes, “It is highly unlikely that the name would have been used before the destruction of the temple by Titus. This internal element then points decisively to a date after 70 c.e.” (1981, 382).
More evidence for dating Revelation seems to be given in the reference to the seven heads of the beast as seven kings (emperors) (17:9-14). Of those seven kings, “five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come and when he comes he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to perdition.” One needs simply to figure out which five emperors have already fallen, and then the sixth emperor is reigning during the time that John writes. The earliest possible of the five past rulers would be Julius Caesar who died in 44 bce. The complete list following Julius Caesar would then be the five emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the three emperors during the confusion after Nero's death, the three Flavian emperors, and then, if relevant, Nerva and Trajan. Their reigns occurred as follows:
Julius
(d. 44 bce)
Julio-Claudian dynasty
(27 bce-68 ce)
Augustus
(27 bce-14 ce)
Tiberius
(14-37)
Gaius (Caligula)
(37-41)
Claudius
(41-54)
Nero
(54-68)
Three short-lived emperors
Galba
(68-69)
Otho
(69)
Vitellius
(69)
The Flavians
(69-96)
Vespasian
(69-79)
Titus
(79-81)
Domitian
(81-96)
Nerva
(96-98)
Trajan
(98-117)
The puzzle is twofold: Where should one begin the count, and which emperors should be included in the count? Rowland argues that the simplest solution begins with Augustus and counts each emperor to the sixth, Galba. He thus supports the dating of Revelation around 68 ce, during the upheaval that came between the death of Nero and the accession of Vespasian: “The great uncertainty which was felt throughout the empire during ad 68 could hardly have failed to stir up the hopes of Jews and Christians that their deliverance was nigh” (1982, 406). Rowland here follows the lead of Bishop Lightfoot, B. F. Westcott, F. J. A. Hort, and more recently John A. T. Robinson and Albert Bell (see Rowland 1982, 403), all of whom argued for the chaotic state of the empire after Nero's death as the setting in which Revelation was written.
John Court, on the other hand, noting that the Antichrist tradition is clearly applied to Rome in this passage and not to Jerusalem, concludes that the fall of Jerusalem (70 ce) must have occurred “in the more distant past” and therefore that the present king must be considerably later than Galba (1979, 125). Rome is the Antichrist because of the conflicting allegiance created among Christians by emperor worship (p. 126). Court then begins the count from Nero, the first emperor to be an Antichrist figure, and concludes that the sixth king who presently reigns is Titus (p. 135). Later the author of Revelation adapts his writings to the time of Domitian, when the pretentions of the imperial cult become ever more extravagant and blasphemous (pp. 137-38).
Yarbro Collins concludes that if the kings are to be considered inclusively, the list must begin with Julius Caesar (see Sib. Or. 5.12-51, 4 Ezra 11-12); Nero would thus be the sixth, contemporary emperor, which would be an impossibility since the legend of the return of Nero after his death is presupposed in the king list (Rev. 17:11) (1984, 58-64). Galba, the sixth if one begins with Augustus, is also an unlikely candidate, because he reigned prior to the fall of Jerusalem; and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans is a necessary prerequisite for identifying Rome and Babylon. She concludes that probably the author by some principle selected certain emperors from the list beginning with Gaius, who made such a negative impact upon Jewish writers of his time. Omitting the three short reigns of 69 ce, the sixth and present king becomes Domitian (Yarbro Collins 1984, 64).
Revelation 17, thus, does not give conclusive evidence for the date of the book. The identification of Rome with Babylon and the reference to Nero as returning from the dead argue for a post-70 date; the list of kings does not justify any precision beyond that.
The most compelling evidence for dating the book more precisely after 70 ce remains the reference by Irenaeus, who came from Asia Minor and knew Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (d. c. 155 ce). He states that the visions of Revelation were seen “not long ago” but “close to our generation, towards the end of the reign of Domitian” (Iren. Haer. 5.30.3 = Eus. Hist. Eccl. 3.18.1).1 As we have seen, a date in Domitian's reign is also compatible with the kings' list in chapter 17. Some scholars still argue for dating the book shortly after Nero's death when several people were vying to be emperor; but when the weight of internal and external evidence is taken together, we may conclude with most scholars that Revelation was written sometime in the latter years of Domitian's reign, that is, 92-96 ce.
CRISIS IN THE REIGN OF DOMITIAN
Eusebius of Caesarea, the fourth-century Christian historian, laid the groundwork in Christian history for viewing Domitian's reign as a time of persecution and crisis.2 He says, in a section devoted to the Emperor Domitian, that “many were the victims of Domitian's appalling cruelty.” He refers to distinguished Romans and other eminent men who were executed without trial, banished from the country, or had property confiscated. Then he states that the apostle and evangelist John “was still alive [in Domitian's reign], and because of his testimony to the word of God was sentenced to confinement on the island of Patmos.” Under Nerva, Domitian's successor, John was allowed to return from exile on Patmos to his residence at Ephesus. Eusebius notes that even non-Christian historians record the persecutions and martyrdoms that Christians such as Flavia Domitilla suffered under Domitian (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 3.17-20).3
A more critical reading of Eusebius raises doubts about widespread persecution of Christians under Domitian. So Leon Hardy Canfield concludes, after reviewing carefully both Christian and non-Christian sources, that no great persecution occurred under Domitian and if the Apocalypse “does refer to conditions in Asia Minor under Domitian it is the only source for such a persecution” (1913, 162).4 Recent commentators on the Apocalypse of John support Canfield's conclusion. J. P. M. Sweet, for example, writes, “The letters to the churches [in the Apocalypse] suggest that persecution was occasional and selective, and that the chief dangers were complacency and compromise” (1979, 26).
Although most modern commentators no longer accept a Domitianic persecution of Christians, they do assume that Domitian's increased demands for worship and the “reign of terror” in the years immediately preceding Domitian's death created a critical situation for Christians in Asia Minor. Adolf Harnack, in a discussion of the developing political consciousness of the early church, writes, “The politics of Jewish apocalyptic viewed the world-state as a diabolic state, and consequently took up a purely negative attitude towards it. This political view is put uncompromisingly in the apocalypse of John, where it was justified by the Neronic persecution, the imperial claim for worship, and the Domitianic reign of terror” (1961, 257). Johannes Weiss, another classical church historian from the modern period, notes that not many actual deaths had occurred when the Apocalypse was written but that Domitian's intensified demands for worship, perhaps not by imperial decree but by the importance that he placed on being called “lord” and “god,” created a crisis for Christians. Christians in Asia Minor experienced this crisis especially as they no longer were able to claim the special status and privileges (e.g., exemption from emperor worship) given to Jews. The unpopularity of Christians among the local provincials combined with Domitian's religious demands and his general cruelty to threaten the Christian communities (1959, 806-10). More recently, W. H. C. Frend notes that Domitian's increased demands to be worshipped resulted in “intensified apocalyptic fervour among the Christians in the province [of Asia]” (1981, 194). Schüssler Fiorenza underscores how the imperial cult was promoted under Domitian and how he demanded that “the populace acclaim him as ‘Lord and God’ and participate in his worship”; living as they were in cities that promoted imperial worship, “Christians were bound to experience increasing conflicts with the Roman civil religion since they acclaimed Jesus Christ and not the emperor as their ‘Lord and God’” (1981, 62). She and several other commentators suggest that the reference to “Lord and God” in Revelation 4:11 deliberately reflects “political language of the day” (1981, 76).
On the surface there are good reasons for assuming that Domitian did give greater prominence to imperial worship.5 According to Roman, as well as early Christian, sources Domitian demanded divine worship during his lifetime, most especially at the end of his reign, and generally strengthened the imperial cult, which included the worship of both Roma and the emperor. Pliny the Younger and Tacitus condemn Domitian's evil claims to divinity and tyranny, and Pliny's younger friend Suetonius makes now-famous statements about Domitian's inordinate claims to titles such as “our Lord and God” (dominus et deus noster). Dio Cassius, writing about a century later (in the second decade of the third century), repeats and enhances descriptions of Domitian's evil character.
Since Roman historians characterize especially the latter part of Domitian's reign as a reign of terror by a tyrant and megalomaniac who claimed and demanded imperial worship from his subjects, Domitian's reign provides a plausible social, political setting of the Book of Revelation; for one of the major themes in the Apocalypse is unquestionably the conflict between imperial Rome with its divine claims and the rule of the Christian God. John states that he shares his readers' affliction and he perseveres (Rev. 1:9). He is on the island of Patmos “because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus.” Antipas has been martyred at Pergamum (Rev. 2:13). In chapter 13 many commentators identify the beast from the sea with the annual docking of a boat carrying the emperor's representative to the province of Asia and the beast from the earth with the provincial cult responsible for “promoting the imperial cult in Asia Minor” (Rowland 1982, 431-32).6 Later, in chapters 17-18, images center on the city rather than the emperors of Rome, as her economic and commercial power, so destructive to the church, is overcome in a series of eschatological disasters (e.g., Rowland 1982, 433-34). Schüssler Fiorenza thus concludes that “the major part of the work describes in mythological-symbolic language the threat of the Roman political and religious powers” (1981, 31).7
Some commentators also call attention to an economic dimension to the critical times under Domitian. Revelation 13:17 refers specifically to the necessity of using coins with the emperor's image in order to enter into economic transactions. Economic transactions could thus be seen as an arm of the imperial cult and a form of oppression (see Schüssler Fiorenza 1981, 173). More specifically, Court links the prices of wheat and barley (Rev. 6:6) with the periodic famines that raged through Asia Minor in this period. The reference to wine may even allude to the opposition expressed by the people of Asia Minor to an edict of Domitian in 92 ce to cut back on the number of vineyards in Asia. As a result, Domitian revoked his edict and allowed the vines to be unharmed (Court 1979, 59-60).8 Whether that passage can be linked so precisely to the conditions in Asia during the years 92-93 ce or not, others, borrowing from Rostovtzeff, have noted more generally that the prosperity of Asia during the Flavian period brought conflict between the rich and the poor and between Roman governors and the populus (e.g., Yarbro Collins 1983, 744-46).
THE BOOK OF REVELATION AND ITS GENRE
If the Book of Revelation were a distinctive or peculiar work without comparison in form or content, the task of understanding it would involve reading carefully what is said and considering its contents in the context of its historical setting. The Book of Revelation, however, shares a style of writing and a set of motifs with other works from roughly the same historical period; that is, the seer of the New Testament participates in a mystical tradition—a convention of images, themes, styles, and literary forms—that shapes in part his psychological experiences, social perceptions, religious insights, and literary expressions. In literary terms the Book of Revelation belongs to a genre, and an understanding of that work requires an understanding of the genre.
Modern scholars, taking a cue from the Apocalypse of John (in Greek, Apocalypsis Ioannou), refer to works written in this tradition as belonging to the genre “apocalypse”: a work may be called an apocalypse if it resembles the Revelation of John, that is—in the words of Klaus Koch—if it presents “secret divine disclosures about the end of the world and the heavenly state” (1972, 18). The designation of Jewish and Christian works as apocalypses began in the early church (see M. Smith 1983, 19); but the attempt at literary classification is a modern one, and much debate accompanies any definition of the genre “apocalypse” as well as the notion of genre itself.9
The muddle of scholarly debate should not, however, obscure the importance of genre for understanding a specific writing. Recall that one could read and reread as carefully as possible the terms of endearment in one single business letter (“Dear so and so,” “Yours truly”) and not understand these elements as distinctive to the genre. Moreover, readers cannot recognize something in a specific writing as generic (common to the genre) unless they have read other examples in the same genre; that is, elements of a genre are discovered through comparing several examples.
In the Christian Bible there are not many examples of apocalypses. Besides the Book of Revelation, there is only Daniel in the Old Testament.10 Other examples are to be found outside the Christian canon in Jewish writings associated with the names of Enoch, Ezra, and Baruch. Two Christian books written a little later than the Book of Revelation—the Apocalypse of Peter and the Shepherd of Hermas—were recognized by some members of the early church as having special sanctity, with the former included by some circles as part of the New Testament. Among these Jewish and Christian apocalypses, the Book of Revelation is neither first nor last; it has both predecessors and successors.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GENRE
In isolating characteristics of the genre “apocalypse,” scholars focus upon the content and style of a work. Philipp Vielhauer (1965), for example, regards the following as fixed, formal elements in this literary genre: (1) the author writes under a pseudonym, a great name in the tradition, such as Ezra, Enoch, or Isaiah; (2) the writing is presented as an account of a vision—a dream, an ecstatic state, or a heavenly rapture; (3) a portion of past history is presented as though it were in the future; (4) farewell discourses, exhortations, prayers, and hymns may be found. According to Vielhauer apocalypses also contain fixed content: (1) There are two ages, the present age and the age to come, which are qualitatively different; (2) the present age is devalued and viewed with pessimism as under the control of Satan, while the age to come is correspondingly glorified as a wonderful time; (3) apocalypses consider the whole world and all peoples, not just Jews, so that everyone is considered as an individual (not simply as a member of a community)—to be resurrected and judged as an individual; (4) God has foreordained everything according to fixed plan, including the activity that brings the imminent end (eschaton).11
Is Vielhauer's list of fixed forms and essential content adequate for defining the genre? Defining an apocalypse through lists runs into the predictable problem of what to include and what to exclude as basic. Vielhauer, for example, knows that among the things revealed in apocalypses are secrets about heaven, hell, astronomy, meteorology, geography, and the origin of sin and evil; but he concludes that their main interest “does not lie in problems of cosmology or theodicy, but in eschatology” (1965, 587). Michael Stone, on the other hand, argues that speculative interests in such matters as cosmology, astronomy, and the calendar reflect one of the “core elements” of apocalypses (1980, 42, 113-14). As a way of including both eschatological and cosmological speculations, Christopher Rowland argues that disclosure of knowledge through direct revelation is the fundamental characteristic of apocalypses (1982, 21, 357; see also Stone 1980, 29). Koch enumerates a somewhat different list of form and content that an apocalypse must include (Koch 1972, 24-27). Joshua Bloch (1952) and H. H. Rowley (1980) also suggested their own distinctive list of characteristics.12
REPRESENTATIVE JEWISH APOCALYPSES
In order to get a better sense of how various elements recur in specific apocalypses and how the Book of Revelation is similar to other apocalypses, let us look briefly at some elements of form and content found in three representative Jewish apocalypses: 1 Enoch, Daniel, and 4 Ezra.
The earliest known example of apocalyptic literature has come down to us under the pseudonym of Enoch, who according to Genesis lived in the fifth generation after Adam, prior to Noah and the flood. Of Enoch it is simply stated that he “walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). Enoch's piety along with his enigmatic ending made him an apt figure for apocalyptic speculation within Judaism and Christianity. This early apocalypse called 1 Enoch or Ethiopic Enoch (the only complete version of the work has come down in the Ethiopic language because of the Ethiopian church's interest in it) is now generally viewed as a composite work of five separate sources written at different times: (1) Book of the Watchers (chaps. 1-36), pre-Maccabean, perhaps late third century bce; (2) Similitudes of Enoch (chaps. 37-71), mid-first century ce; (3) Book of Heavenly Luminaries (chaps. 72-82), also pre-Maccabean, perhaps the earliest of the sources; (4) Book of Dreams (chaps. 83-90), early Maccabean, circa 165-161 bce; and (5) Epistle of Enoch including Apocalypse of Weeks (chaps. 91-108), late Hasmonean, circa 105 bce (but see Nickelsburg 1981, 149-50).13
The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries contains some of the earliest material in the Enoch collection and reflects the speculative interests of apocalyptic underscored by Michael Stone. Enoch gives in detail cosmological secrets regarding the movements of the sun and the moon, the twelve winds, the four directions (East, South, West, North), the seven mountains, the seven rivers, and the astronomical laws that establish a solar year of 364 days—a calendrical point of some importance to the author. In this section, Enoch also makes the point that the world as we know it will come to an end and that a better world will replace it—a “new creation which abides forever.” Disorder and confusion will occur before the new creation: the moon will alter its course, and chiefs of the stars will make errors in the orders given to them as evil things multiply and plagues increase. The work concludes with other revelations and visions (typical forms in apocalypses) given to Methuselah, Enoch's son.
Chapters 83-90 contain two Dream Visions. One is a brief vision of cosmic destruction in which the sky falls upon earth and earth is swallowed up in the great abyss. Grandfather Mahalalel makes a telling point: “all the things upon the earth shall take place from heaven,” that is, the earthly has archetypes in heaven. A second vision presents a portion of “past” biblical history as though it were in the future; this narrative takes the form of an animal allegory (the so-called Animal Apocalypse) in which Adam, Seth, and his descendants Noah, Abraham, and Isaac are all presented as white bulls. Before the great flood, fallen stars come down and pasture with the cows (see Book of the Watchers); their mixed offspring are pictured as elephants, camels, and donkeys. Later the fallen stars are punished by being cast into an abyss “narrow and deep, empty and dark.” With Isaac's son, Jacob, the animal symbolism shifts to sheep; by means of fairly transparent symbols, the biblical story of Israel is told up through the restoration after the Babylonian Exile. Then new animals—eagles, vultures, kites, and ravens (the Greeks and their kingdoms)—oppress the sheep until a great horn sprouts on one of the sheep (Judas Maccabeus). With God's help he successfully fights against the vultures, kites, and ravens. Then the Lord smites the earth, and gives a great sword to the sheep to kill all the beasts and birds. Eschatological judgment follows, during which “sealed books” are opened “in the presence of the Lord of the sheep.” A new temple is set up; all peoples come and worship the sheep, “making petition to them and obeying them in every respect.” Finally bovine symbolism returns with the birth of a snow-white cow with huge horns; all are transformed into snow-white cows, so that the eschatological finale returns to the Adamic vision. In Enoch's panoramic historical review of the world from Eden to the new Jerusalem, the end time becomes the time of beginning. Then Enoch awakes from his vision.
Elsewhere in 1 Enoch there are other themes common to apocalypses including the Book of Revelation. In the Similitudes of Enoch there are references to judgment, the punishment of the wicked, and the dwelling of the righteous in the presence of the Lord and his angels. Special mention is made in the second parable or similitude (chaps. 45-57) to the judging of kings, oppressors, and the economically powerful; and, in contrast, the prayers of righteous ones ascend into heaven on behalf of the blood of the righteous that has been shed. As Enoch ranges through time as well as space, he sees the Son of Man given a name before the creation, the resurrection of the dead in the latter days, and the final judgment. In the third parable Enoch sees the divine throne; the separation of Leviathan and Behemoth, who will become food on the great day of the Lord; various cosmological secrets; angelic measurings to strengthen the righteous; and the final judgment by the Lord and the Son of Man, which will bring reversals of status between rulers and the righteous. In the Epistle of Enoch (chaps. 91-108) Enoch tells Methuselah and all his brothers “everything that shall happen to you forever.” After a kind of Jobian soliloquy on who can ponder the thoughts of God words of comfort, exhortation, and warning bring the work to a close.
In Jewish Scriptures Daniel is the only full-blown apocalyptic work.14 Chapters 7-12—if not the whole of Daniel—arose in the situation of political conflict between the Jews and Antiochus Epiphanes after 187 bce, approximately the same time as the Animal Apocalypse in the Dream Visions of Enoch. Daniel 2 tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's interpretation of it. Daniel is able to know the dream and its interpretation through divine revelation, for such knowledge is a mystery known only through revelatory visions. Through the symbolism of a bright and mighty animal, Daniel “foretells” the sequence of four kingdoms, with Nebuchadnezzer's kingdom as its golden head and the Successors of Alexander the Great making up its toes. In the days of the latter, God will break in pieces the kingdoms and will establish his everlasting reign. As with similar narratives in 1 Enoch, the seer is able to see the future, which is fixed and known by God. In Daniel 7 the seer sees in a night vision “four great beasts” coming out of the sea: one like a lion, a second like a bear, then one like a leopard, and a fourth beast “terrible and dreadful” with ten horns. After a little horn appears on the fourth beast, Daniel sees a throne scene with the Ancient of Days who destroys the beasts. Then he sees one “like a son of man” given dominion, glory, and an eternal kingdom by the Ancient of Days. A heavenly figure interprets the vision for Daniel: four kings shall arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess it for ever. Detailed explanation is given of the fourth beast and especially of the eleventh horn on that beast. Later chapters (Dan. 8-12) parallel chapter 7 (see Thompson 1978, 211). In the recitation of the kingdoms in Daniel 10-12 grandfather Mahalalel's point is made once again: things on earth take place from heaven—for all earthly events there are heavenly archetypes. Daniel's visions give eschatological assurance to those who are wise and know their God, for the righteous who die have hope at the time of the end.
Around the end of the first century ce, a few decades after the fall of Jerusalem to Rome and around the same time as the Apocalypse of John, several Jewish apocalypses may be dated: 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and 2 Enoch (see Collins 1984a, 155-86). Among them 4 Ezra will serve as our final representation of Jewish apocalyptic.15 Ezra's apocalypse divides into seven sections—first three dialogues with an angel over problems of divine justice, then four visions of the end. In mood, the visions move from despair to hope, from imponderable questions to resolution and consolation (Nickelsburg 1981, 294).
In the first section Ezra is troubled over the problem of the “evil heart” that infects all descendants of Adam. Given the universality of sin, what nation has kept God's commandments? More pointedly, why should Zion be in desolation? Are Babylonians less sinners than the Jews? The angel Uriel, Ezra's interlocutor, answers in the tradition of Job by asking Ezra to explain certain cosmic phenomena such as the measure of the wind. Moreover, everything in the cosmos has an assigned place (the sea, the plain, sand), and those assigned to earth cannot understand the things of heaven. True wisdom requires revelation. Ezra reiterates a part of his question: he does not ask about heavenly things but about daily life that all Israel experiences, her plight in the world. Uriel then gives an eschatological solution: this age cannot deliver what has been promised to the righteous; but it is hastening swiftly to its end according to a time table determined by God. Certain signs of the end can be seen—chaos, prodigies, the reversal of nature's order (salt waters become sweet; menstruous women bring forth monsters; beasts roam beyond their haunts, i.e., out of bounds), and unrighteousness—but the end will come when it is destined. Evil has been sown, but its harvest has not yet come nor has the harvest of the righteous. The age has been carefully weighted, measured, and numbered; and God will not move until the measure is fulfilled.
The second section follows much the same structure, but this time the dialogue centers more specifically on the plight of Zion. Section 3 also resolves several hard questions about human existence by pointing to the eschaton (end-time). In section 4 the dialogue form is interrupted by a vision of a disconsolate women whose son died at his wedding. While she and Ezra speak, she is transformed into an established city, Zion itself. Her story then becomes an allegory for Zion. Section 5 relates a dream vision that is also a reinterpretation of the fourth kingdom in Daniel 7. The fourth beast, here an eagle with sundry wings and heads, signifies the Roman Empire (not, as in Daniel, Alexander the Great and his Successors). A Lion (the Messiah) reproves the eagle and brings its kingdom to an end; this Messiah, from the posterity of David, will himself judge and destroy the evil ones and deliver in mercy the righteous remnant. As an eschatological agent, this Lion of the tribe of Judah parallels the Son of Man in Daniel and the Elect One in the parables of Enoch. The sixth section elaborates on the eschatological agent who is called “Man,” presumably drawing again on Daniel 7. The Man comes out of the sea—no one can know what is in the depths of the sea—and flies with the clouds of heaven, finally settling on a high mountain that he carves out for himself. From the mountain (Zion) he will judge and destroy the ungodly and deliver and protect those who have works and faith in the Almighty. The seventh, final section points out similarities between Ezra and Moses. God calls Ezra out of a bush, draws specific parallels to Moses, informs Ezra that 9[frac12] of the 12 parts of this age have passed, and then dictates twenty-four books (Hebrew Scriptures) to be made public and seventy to be kept secret until the last day. Ezra deserves this honor because he has devoted his life to wisdom, to studying the law, and to understanding. Likewise, the books contain the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge; they will be received by the wise among the people.
TOWARD A DEFINITION OF THE GENRE
From this sampling in books that everyone associates with the genre “apocalypse,” one can see both a variety and a recurrence of elements. Millenarians will recognize the prominence of the end-times, eschatological speculation about the signs and how to interpret them, and descriptions of the end itself. In all of these works knowledge of the end comes through special revelation in the form of visions or heavenly journeys. There is also, however, knowledge revealed about the present world, knowledge in the fields of geography, climatology, meteorology, astronomy, and angelology. Some recite in veiled terms the course of world history, especially in connection with the history of the chosen people. Eschatological speculation is often linked to problems of theodicy—Why do the just suffer? Why doesn't goodness, especially of the chosen people, receive reward?
Must a specific work contain all of those themes to be classified as an apocalypse? Are certain themes more central than others? Are stylistic features also important in classifying a work? Should one also consider its place and function in the life of the people who create it and read it? The problem of defining a genre remains no simple matter, yet our view of the Book of Revelation changes when we recognize that it is part of a generic tradition rather than an idiosyncratic work. Understanding includes proper classification. In order to be more systematic in considering these issues of genre, scholars have generally agreed to analyze separately three aspects of the genre “apocalypse” and to refer to each of those aspects by a different term: apocalypse, apocalyptic eschatology, or apocalypticism.16
Apocalypse refers to a set of writings, a literature, that includes such works as Daniel, 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and the Book of Revelation. One asks, What do books or portions of books called apocalypses have in common? What stylistic and linguistic elements distinguish them from other writings?
Apocalyptic eschatology refers to a “religious perspective” (Hanson 1976, 29) or an “attitude of mind” (Koch 1972, 33) that involves certain beliefs about the world and the place of humans in it (see also Schmithals 1975, 10-11, 73). Among the possible ways of conceiving the human situation, how does apocalyptic eschatology describe the place of humans in the world? Among all possible states of the world, which states or which set of states defines the assertions, beliefs, and propositions of an apocalyptic perspective? Most scholars identify the radical transcendence of God as a key element in apocalyptic eschatology (e.g., Hanson 1979, 432). The religious perspective of apocalyptic eschatology reflects transcendence in at least two ways: knowledge of the perspective comes through means that transcend normal human experience (visions, world journeys); and God's activity in saving the world transcends history, that is, God's activity breaks in upon historical realities and human endeavors rather than working through them. Walter Schmithals asserts an extreme form of transcendence when he states that in apocalyptic eschatology, history “is made thoroughly secular, profane. What happened in history has no significance theologically. … Apocalyptic pessimism toward history expels God from history. … The devil becomes the lord of this eon” (Schmithals 1975, 81).17 Most scholars would want to temper such a statement so that transcendence does not oppose history and ordinary human experience, but expands them. Apocalyptic eschatology would then open the world and human activity to a larger perspective (see Rowland 1982, 29, 92, 175, 475; Koch 1972, 31).
Apocalypticism refers to social aspects of apocalypses and transcendent eschatology: Do apocalypses or transcendent eschatology arise only in certain kinds of social situations (e.g., times of trials and difficulties)? Does the literature or the perspective serve distinctive social functions among those people sharing in it (e.g., to sustain their faith, to give comfort)? Is it possible to speak of an “apocalyptic movement” that can be located in a specific time and place within a specific group of people clearly distinguished from other groups? Scholars tend to describe the social situation and social group connected with apocalypticism as alienated from the socioreligious structures of the society around it and as participating in “an alternative universe of meaning,” constructed from the perspective of apocalyptic eschatology, that denies ultimate significance to the social structures of this world (Hanson 1979, 433-34; 1976, 30).
Scholars differ somewhat in how they define or describe each of those three dimensions and in how they relate the three. The community, the perspective, and the literature may be seen as inevitably locked together. Yet it is at least logically possible for a particular writing or a particular group of people to embody the religious perspective of apocalyptic eschatology without sharing, respectively, in the literary form of apocalypse or the social features of apocalypticism. Perhaps it is possible for a work to have the form of apocalypse without the content of apocalyptic eschatology. In any case, it is possible to inquire separately into any one of these three dimensions.
This naming of subdivisions is symptomatic of the present state of biblical studies, in which literary, religious, and social-historical inquiries tend to be pursued separately. Even among those who hold that genre should include linguistic, religious, and social aspects, each subfield is seen as so complex as to require at least a temporary separation of form and content from social situation (see Collins 1979, 3-5). As a result genre studies tend to bracket out apocalypticism (social situation), which is then pursued as a separate issue (Sanders 1983, 450-51; Koch 1972, 21). Thus, the standard definition of the genre “apocalypse,” developed by John J. Collins and other members of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in the Apocalypse Group of the SBL Genres Project, refers only to elements of form and content; those who formulated this definition deliberately left out the issue of apocalypticism. They define apocalypse as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (Collins 1979, 9).
A fundamental issue left open in this definition revolves around the relationship between the language-and-religious perspective of apocalypses, on the one hand, and their location in the social order, on the other. Perhaps this relationship cannot be resolved on the level of genre; perhaps the location in the social-historical order will vary from one apocalypse to another. Nonetheless, there are some social issues common to the genre, which we shall take up in the next chapter.
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With form and content dominating questions of genre, scholars have taken up the social setting of apocalypses as a separate issue. There are several good reasons for that separation. Classic form criticism—a method for relating literature and society—probably linked too closely a particular form with one particular setting; and as Collins, among others, notes, a single apocalypse may be used in different ways in different social settings (Collins 1979, 4). Lack of knowledge about the social-historical setting of specific apocalypses also contributes to the separation, for little is known about when, where, by whom, and for whom most apocalypses were written (see Stone 1980, 72-73, 85). Information about social setting comes for the most part from the apocalyptic texts themselves. Scholars use a text as “a window into the author's world,” and, as Nickelsburg has observed, in doing so they “see through a glass darkly” (1983, 641). A conventicle setting may have been the provenance for some apocalypses, but certainly not for all (see Schmithals 1975, 46; Collins 1984b, 20-21). Apocalypses were circulated throughout Palestine in various schools (Bloch 1952, 53; Stone 1980, 69), and they were well received among Diaspora Jews outside Palestine, especially those in hellenistic communities (Bloch 1952, 38, 128). The view of the end in apocalypses is not sufficiently different from rabbinic and other eschatologies to warrant the notion that apocalypses arose outside the mainstream of Jewish life (see Bloch 1952, 133).18 Apocalypses were used in the sectarian context of Qumran, but they were also “scattered in the ranks of all parties of their day” (p. 136). The apocalyptic sections of Daniel arose in the Maccabean uprising, but it is unlikely that 1 Enoch belongs to the same circles or even to a time of political upheaval. The apparent variation in social situation among apocalypses makes it difficult to talk about a genre-specific social, historical setting.
APOCALYPSE AS A LITERATURE OF CRISIS
Although apocalypses do not arise in just one “setting in life,” there is widespread agreement that an apocalypse arises within a particular kind of situation, namely a situation of crisis. H. H. Rowley comments about the author of Daniel, which Rowley considers to be the first, great apocalypse. “It is fortitude under persecution that he encourages … and in this he is the forerunner of other apocalyptists” (1980, 22, 52). Although more recent analysts reject persecution as the setting of all apocalypses, they do continue to link apocalypses to a setting of crisis. So Hanson refers to the “harsh realities” of the Jews in the period between the Babylonian Exile (587 bce) and the Maccabean era (c. 170 bce): “With nationhood lost, prophetic and priestly offices taken away, and social and religious institutions controlled by adversaries, world-weary visionaries began to recognize in a mythologized version of eschatology a more promising way of keeping alive a hope for final vindication” (1979, 432). Wilson also suggests that the “chaos of the postexilic period set the stage for the formation of various types of apocalyptic groups” (1982, 87). Rapid social change, especially if cross-cultural contact occurs (such as in the postexilic period of Israel or the rise of early Christianity), is thought to exacerbate disorder, disorganization, conflict, and a sense of deprivation (e.g., Wilson 1982, 84-85), conditions that set the social context for apocalypses.19 The notion of crisis may be defined in different ways—Collins includes persecution, culture shock, injustice, and the inevitability of death—but a situation of crisis is seen as fundamental to the rise of an apocalypse (Collins 1984b, 22).
A latent social determinism appears here, as in classical form criticism. Through appeals to the sociology of knowledge or to anthropological research on more recent millenarian movements such as Ghost Dance or cargo cults, apocalypses and apocalyptic eschatology are generally viewed as a function of the social setting.20 So Schüssler Fiorenza writes, “A sociology of knowledge approach points out that any change in theological ideas and literary forms is preceded by a change in social function and perspective” (1983, 311). Thus, the form and content of the language change when the setting changes. Hanson's comments on the origins of apocalypticism in Judaism illustrate: “Bleak conditions call into question traditional socioreligious structures and their supporting myths. Life is situated precariously over the abyss” (1979, 433). In response a group may embrace “apocalyptic eschatology as the perspective from which it constructs an alternative universe of meaning” (p. 434). Apocalyptic eschatology affirms that “God, who guides all reality toward a goal, [is] about to intervene to reverse the fortunes of the prosperous wicked and the suffering righteous” (p. 434). That religious perspective—a development from the eschatology of Hebrew prophets—emerged in the harsh realities of postexilic times. While the religious perspective of apocalyptic eschatology should not be identified with apocalypticism as a social movement, Hanson does state that the latter “is latent” in the former: “At the point where the disappointments of history lead a group to embrace that perspective as an ideology … we can speak of the birth of an apocalyptic movement” (p. 432). Apocalypses are “produced by apocalyptic movements” and reflect the alienation experienced by those groups (p. 433). As can be seen, the perspectival shifts from prophetic eschatology to apocalyptic eschatology to apocalyptic ideology are necessarily preceded by changes in social, historical situations.
An analysis of the Similitudes of Enoch might thus develop along the following lines. The work arose in a community similar to Qumran around the middle of the first century of the Common Era. Members of that community “resented the rule of the pagan Romans or the impious Herods” and felt oppressed by them. The apocalypse arises out of that crisis of foreign rule and oppression. In response, the writer of the Similitudes uses pseudonymity, reports of a heavenly tour, eschatological predictions, descriptions of judgment scenes that reverse the status of rulers and righteous ones, and other elements of the genre “apocalypse” in order to help members of the community to keep faith and hope. The apocalypse serves several functions in that social setting, but none incompatible with a setting of crisis.21
WALTER SCHMITHALS: AN ALTERNATIVE
Walter Schmithals offers a decisive alternative to the above solution, for he severs all genetic connections between apocalypses and their social, historical situation: apocalyptic “primarily has its roots within itself, namely in the apocalyptic experience of existence,” which is not caused by social, historical forces (1975, 150, cf. 120). Schmithals recognizes that there were “‘apocalyptic’ situations, that is, times which were so filled with sorrow and destruction, turmoil and oppression, that eschatologically oriented groups saw no more hope at all for this world and concentrated their hopes entirely on a new, coming eon” (p. 141). Not all apocalypses, however, arose in “exceptionally frightful conditions” and in those conditions apocalyptic was “only one reaction among various actual reactions” (p. 149):22 “Apocalyptic does not … understand itself to be a reaction to a particular social reality” (p. 145), as though “certain realities inevitably produce a certain understanding of existence” (p. 148). Put differently, an attitude towards the world does not derive simply from “causal structures in existing reality” (p. 148).23 The decisive factor is rather a predisposition that cannot be derived “but only affirmed or denied, accepted or rejected” (p. 150). Taking a cue from an earlier work by Rudolf Otto, Schmithals grounds the apocalyptic predisposition in “the idea of the transcendence of the divine.”24 The more fully “divine transcendence” dominates a person's understanding of the world, the more likely he or she will be predisposed to apocalyptic thinking.25
PERCEIVED CRISIS
Schmithal's approach and the social-historical approach of other scholars mark the extremes in relating apocalypses to a social, historical situation: the latter approach makes apocalyptic derivative of social, historical situations; while the former severs connections between apocalyptic and social settings. Most recently, a kind of compromise between those two positions has developed around the notion of “perceived crisis.” This notion has arisen, on the one hand, out of a reluctance to break the connection of apocalypses with “social upheaval and turmoil, … alienation and powerlessness” (see Nickelsburg 1983, 646) and on the other, out of a recognition that many apocalypses have obviously not arisen from political upheaval and social crisis. “Perceived crisis” becomes a notion or conceptual tool for retaining models that connect apocalypses to social crises while recognizing that the social crises are not necessarily evident; an apocalyptic point of view appears to be tied to a particular type of social-historical situation (i.e., crisis), when in fact it is tied only to the piety of the apocalypticist, to his perceptions and his attitude of mind.26
What then does perceived crisis signify? It is a way of saying that (1) the author of an apocalypse considers a situation to be a crisis but (2) that the crisis dimensions of the situation are evident only through his angle of vision: “The problem is not viewed simply in terms of the historical factors available to any observer. Rather it is viewed in the light of a transcendent reality disclosed by the apocalypse” (Collins 1984a, 32)—that is, the crisis becomes visible only through the revealed knowledge in an apocalypse; prior to that knowledge there is no crisis. People discover the crisis dimensions of their existence by reading an apocalypse. An apocalypse thus functions in a social situation not only to bring comfort, hope, perseverance, and the like but also to cause people to see their situation as one in which such functions are needed and appropriate. An apocalypse can create the perception that a situation is one of crisis and then offer hope, assurance, and support for faithful behavior in dealing with the crisis. In the process the reader or hearer takes on the viewpoint of the writer and sees the human situation from the vantage point of transcendent reality (see Collins 1984a, 32). Thus, the concept “perceived crisis” contributes to our understanding of how an apocalypse functions in a social situation; but it sheds no light on the social occasion of an apocalypse, for any social situation can be perceived as one of crisis.27
LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL EXCHANGE
In light of this power of apocalypses to shape perceptions of a social situation, we need to reformulate the relationship between an apocalypse as a written document and its social setting. Rather than asking about the social setting of an apocalypse, we should consider how an apocalypse as a social force relates to other social forces; there is a social dimension to apocalyptic language, for an apocalypse can shape a reader's perception of what the social situation is like. If, for example, through apocalyptic language a U.S. citizen identifies the Soviet Union with the Anti-Christ, that linguistic identification will shape dramatically how that person views the actions of the Soviet Union and thinks the U.S. should respond politically and militarily. Here—as always for human beings—the perception of reality is reality.
Through this example one sees that the language and religious vision of the Book of Revelation are not to be relegated to poesis, mythos, and ephemeral presence without impact on actual, social relations in everyday life. Literary, religious constructions do not stay neatly isolated as “symbolic worlds” unrelated to power relations in the social world. Literary, religious visions establish at least minimal social-political distinctions, just as social, political realities carry at least low-level symbolic content. Linguistic activity (speaking, writing, reading, listening) is itself social activity and partakes fully in the social world.
We are touching here upon the social, communicative dimensions of language. There is the obvious point that a person normally uses language to communicate with someone else: to inform, to express, to prescribe, or to evoke. Less obviously, that communication depends upon social, conventional grammatical and syntactical structures of a specific language such as English or Greek. A reader of the Book of Revelation draws upon those social conventions in order to understand the message of the book. In addition, communication requires some common ground—some shared beliefs or mutual knowledge about the world—between speaker and hearer. A speaker may explore that common ground or may make an assertion about the world not shared by the hearer, so that the hearer's understanding of what the world is like will conform more closely to the speaker's (see Stalnaker 1978, 322). In the latter case, a speaker may evoke and actualize dimensions of a world never before conceived in the mind of the other.28
Further, language is used most frequently in a specific “conversational” context. So John Austin writes: “For some years we [philosophers of language] have been realizing more and more clearly that the occasion of an utterance matters seriously, and that the words used are to some extent to be ‘explained’ by the ‘context’ in which they are designed to be or have actually been spoken in a linguistic interchange” (1962, 100). Within a “linguistic interchange” communication includes at least two different dimensions: (1) a proposition, that is, the thing expressed and (2) an intention located in the way that a proposition is expressed. Both propositions and intentions are involved in the normal use of language. For example, the words There is a crevasse under the snow can be seen as a proposition; but in the context of conversation, for example, between two mountain climbers, those words are spoken with a certain intention (e.g., “Step carefully”). That intention or manner of speaking is called the “illocutionary” force of a speech act.29 The meaning of language involves both propositions and their illocutionary force.
In Daniel 6 the satraps and supervisors say to King Darius: “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict or ordinance which the king establishes can be changed” (Dan. 6:15). Their statement includes a proposition about law that is shared with the king. Their statement also includes an illocutionary force or point that in the conversational context is both censorial towards the king and approving of the situation; the illocutionary point of their sentence may be captured by a phrase like “We've got you.” In order for the king to recognize the force of their statement, he must share with them certain social and linguistic conventions by means of which their point is communicated.30 Moreover, those shared conventions are a part of a specific social situation in Daniel 6: a conflict between Daniel and the Persian supervisors who seek to best him before King Darius. The force of the statement cannot be fully grasped without considering it within the dynamics of the specific power situation that occasioned the telling.31
So long as an audience shares fully in the conventions of the language, both propositions and illocutionary forces are a part of the public record of recorded speech. The illocutionary dimension of speech moves toward the social occasion in which the speech is uttered, but the “complete” social occasion is not contained in the illocutionary act. With regard to the Book of Revelation (and many other biblical books), a reader may become familiar with the language (and even recognize its illocutionary force) and still not be able to locate the exact occasion in which the seer's speech acts entered the flow of other social action. It is also difficult to trace out the consequences of speech acts, but, as seen by the exchange between Darius and the satraps, acts of speech do have consequences after they enter the flow of social action. In sum, the social dimensions of language may be located (1) in the language itself, which includes both what is said and its illocutionary point; (2) in the situation occasioning that language; and (3) in the consequences or effects of the speech activity on further social intercourse.
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE GENRE “APOCALYPSE”
The move from the use of words and sentences in a conversation to an apocalypse complicates an analysis of the social dimensions of language, for an apocalypse is a more complex literary unit. A simple sentence transmits meaning by combining sounds, morphemes (the smallest units of meaning in a language), and words; an apocalypse transmits meaning by combining sentences, scenes, and visions.32 As a result, sentences and assertions within a genre must be considered not so much for what they say, their force or point, and their effects as for how they establish these dimensions on the level of genre.
The relationship between form and meaning is crucial, for only units of meaning (not formal units) enter into the flow of social intercourse. For example, as sounds, yawl and y'all may be virtually the same, but those formal elements of sound must be related to meaning before they can be located in a social context; otherwise, one may confuse a context of sailing with that of being addressed by a southerner. So, analogously, one would be on the wrong track in trying to locate 1 Enoch in a social context by trying to find where sheep were oppressed by eagles, for the sentences and scenes about the colorful animals in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90) are formal elements that contribute first to the meaning of the apocalypse and only then to its social occasion.
In light of the earlier discussion about “perceived crisis,” exhortations to remain faithful and consolations in the face of oppression may also be formal elements in the genre and therefore not contribute to any understanding of the social occasion of an apocalypse. Recall that an apocalypse may both create the perception that a situation is one of crisis and then offer hope, assurance, and support for faithful behavior in dealing with the crisis. Those formal elements—scenes portraying crises, consolations to the faithful, exhortations to remain faithful—contribute to meaning on the level of genre, namely, to the revealed knowledge or “the transcendent reality disclosed by the apocalypse” (Collins 1984a, 32). The meaning transmitted by an apocalypse centers on the viewpoint of the writer that is transmitted as revelation.
Just as social conventions determine the place of phonemes, morphemes, and other formal elements in transmitting meaning through sentences, so social conventions determine elements of form and meaning at the level of the genre “apocalypse.” That is one reason why “study of the general conventions and assumptions of the genre” is indispensable to understanding any specific example of it (see Skinner 1974, 125). Genres are not literary structures isolated from a social context, nor are they constituted by purely idiosyncratic linguistic forms; they are a part of conventional social exchange involving speakers, writers, hearers, and readers who recognize their communicative force. So Hartman writes: “The genre belongs to a cultural set up which author and reader have in common” (1983, 340; see also Hellholm 1986, 29-33).
CONTENT OF APOCALYPSES
In the definition of Semeia 14 (Collins 1979), an apocalypse is defined not simply as “revelatory literature” but more specifically as a revelation “disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.” The inclusion of that specific content is essential to the definition of the genre, but it needs to be understood that an apocalypse does not reveal another world, it reveals hidden dimensions of the world in which humans live and die; that is, an apocalypse is not world-negating but, rather, world-expanding: it extends or expands the universe to include transcendent realities, and it does this both spatially and temporally. Spatial expansion dominates apocalypses with other-worldly journeys: that subgenre reports heavenly tours and ascents in which are described such transcendent realities as the abodes of the dead, cosmological secrets, judgment scenes, and the divine throne (Collins 1984b, 14-18). Temporal expansion dominates the “historical apocalypses.” Through symbolic dream visions, revelatory dialogues, scriptural interpretation, and revelation reports the seer narrates prophecy after the fact and makes eschatological predictions (Collins 1984b, 6-14). Although the spatial or the temporal may dominate in a specific apocalypse, both modes of world expansion are present in all apocalypses.
The presence of both modes guarantees that the revelation of transcendence is integrally related to human earthly existence. In apocalypses, there is no radical discontinuity between God and the world (spatial transcendence) or this age and the age to come (temporal transcendence) (see Rowland 1982, 92, 175, 475). A radical transcendence which could sever heaven from earth is tempered by the future transformation of earthly into heavenly existence; and a radical transcendence which could sever this age completely from the age to come is tempered by the presentness of the age to come in heaven. Thus, the presence and interplay of spatial and temporal dimensions in transcendence prevent a thoroughgoing dualism in which the revelation of transcendence would become a separate set of forces without present effect on everyday human activity. The interplay assures that the powers of heaven and of the age to come operate decisively in present, earthly social interaction.33 Seen from the angle of language as social exchange, a seer is making assertions about the world in such a way as to bring the hearer's understanding of what the world is like into greater conformity with his. His use of the genre “apocalypse” may, at least to some extent, also evoke in the mind of his audience dimensions of a world never before conceived. Or, perhaps more correctly, the genre “apocalypse,” through certain widely understood linguistic and social conventions, communicates a certain knowledge and understanding of what the world is like that is genre-specific.
Metaphoric and symbolic language is integral to communicating that knowledge and understanding effectively. Such language operates in the genre to link up correctly the various dimensions of the world that have been expanded through spatial and temporal transcendence. Through metaphor and symbol a seer may report his transformations in space, time, or psychological state. Through the same language here-and-now earthly institutions, powers, and social relations are located properly in the larger, expanded world—for example, by being linked through metaphor and homologue to appropriate suprahuman worldly powers that are both presently locatable somewhere in the expanded universe and eschatologically impinging on the here and now. Through that network of language humans are situated—given a place on which to stand—in the expanded world. Apocalyptic language, thus, not only discloses an expanded universe but also orients humans in that larger world.
THE FUNCTION OF APOCALYPSES
As indicated earlier, the definition of Semeia 14 deliberately omits any reference to function and social setting. Collins writes, “While a complete study of a genre must consider function and social setting, neither of these factors can determine the definition. At least in the case of ancient literature our knowledge of function and setting is often extremely hypothetical and cannot provide a firm basis for generic classification. The only firm basis which can be found is the identification of recurring elements which are explicitly present in the texts” (pp. 1-2). That omission has evoked more objections than any other aspect of the definition of Semeia 14. At the 1982 Seminar on Early Christian Apocalypticism, David Hellholm argued for the necessary inclusion of function in any definition of the genre “apocalypse.” He proposed adding to the Semeia 14 definition the qualification “intended for a group in crisis with the purpose of exhortation and/or consolation by means of divine authority” (1986, 27). This addition brings into the definition the widespread notion that apocalypses arise from a situation of crisis.34 David E. Aune also includes “function” in his modification of the Semeia 14 definition, but, following the lead of John J. Collins, he distinguishes between social and literary functions, with a literary function “concerned only with the implicit and explicit indications within the text itself of the purpose or use of the composition” (1986a, 89). With that caveat he proposes three complementary literary functions: (1) “the legitimation of the transcendent authorization of the message”; (2) “a new actualization of the original revelatory experience”; and (3) the encouragement of cognitive and behavioral modifications (see pp. 89-90). Finally Yarbro Collins, in light of Hellholm and Aune's suggestions, proposes to add to the Semeia 14 definition the qualification “intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority” (1986, 7).
If all speaking, writing, hearing, and reading are themselves social acts that constitute a portion of the flow of social exchange, apocalyptic language is by definition a part of a social situation. Its existence depends not only on the social conventions of a natural language (e.g., Greek or Syriac) but also on the social conventions that constitute the genre. Social function is not extraneous to genre definition.35 Nor is there a clear distinction to be made between literary and social functions, for if something is “literary,” it is “social.” At the same time, one can appreciate fully the objection of Collins and Aune to much of the hypothetical reconstruction of social settings that has been carried out in the name of the historical, critical method. Both underscore that the purpose and use of an apocalypse can only be based on identifiable elements explicitly present in texts under consideration. The issue then becomes, How does a person locate identifiable elements in texts to get at the function and intention of a genre? This question has no easy answer.
Recognition of the social dimensions of language is essential to any move on the social function of a genre. In keeping with the three social dimensions of language outlined above, function can refer to (1) social dimensions within an apocalypse, including its social conventions and illocutionary force (on the level of genre);36 (2) the typicalities, shared conventions, and specifics in the situation occasioning its production; or (3) its effects on ensuing human activity (see Skinner 1970). That taxonomy can help to keep clear where a particular function is to be located in relation to the stream of social activity in and around a text. Analysis of social dimensions within an apocalypse—especially its illocutionary aspects derived from units of meaning on the level of genre—provides the most solid transition from a text to the occasion of its production.
Even with such a taxonomy, however, the term function may confuse the relationship between apocalyptic language and its social dimensions. The term function may suggest a text's “placement in a social setting,” and falsely imply that the genre or “linguistic construction” exists separate from the social order. In order to avoid thinking of genres apart from society, the term intention or illocutionary force may be a better way to talk about the language-society relationship (see Tucker 1971, 17). Whichever term is used, it should be made clear that genres are embedded in the social process and that the task is to recover aspects of that embedment.
If the writing and reading of an apocalypse are seen as social acts occurring among other social acts, the various dimensions of apocalyptic language interact in many different ways with other elements in the social process: literary aspects incorporate social conventions that make communication possible; religious dimensions make assertions about the world and provide a definite perspective from which to view all human activity; the activity of writing, speaking, and hearing makes a point within a particular social situation and that activity then becomes part of the ongoing presuppositions of further social exchange. In brief, language, genre, and other social processes are integrally related.
SETTING AN AGENDA
In the chapters that follow, I shall test a broad hypothesis about how literary, religious, and social dimensions of apocalypses relate, specifically in connection with the Book of Revelation. The argument will be made that the seer's language does not form a separate “symbolic universe” apart from social, political realities; nor does his apocalyptic message address conflicts, tensions, and crises in the world of his audience. Rather, the seer offers a particular understanding—disclosed through revelation—of what the whole world is like, which includes an understanding of how Christians relate to other Christians, to other groups in the cities of Asia, and, more generally, to public social events. This broad thesis has several components.
The Linguistic Vision of the Seer. Every analyst of the Book of Revelation must engage with the language of the book. The multivalence of that metaphoric language needs to be explored so as to respect and appreciate its range and overtones of meanings. The language of Revelation is more like that of poetry than that of a set of directions (as in a cookbook); the language plays through a range of meanings rather than having only one meaning. The analyst must also respect the intertexture of the seer's words: many different organizational devices weave together his words, his sentences, and his scenes. Through attention to that multivalence and intertexture, a vision of the world emerges that includes provincial life in Asia. There is a social dimension to the world constructed by the seer; and ordinary Asian life is to be found in that world vision, not in references that move the reader “outside” the seer's world. For example, the seer's language of comfort, crisis, and exhortation must be understood within the dynamics of multivalence and intertexture of the seer's writing. Social, historical realities are to be found in the interconnectedness of his language, not in correspondences to some external order of reality.
The Social Order. Most recent scholarship continues to assume that the language of Revelation (and of apocalypses generally) reflects and arises in a social, historical situation of crisis. Specifically, in connection with Revelation, that crisis is bound to the reign of Domitian, his reign of terror and his heightened demands for imperial worship. Those assumptions about Domitian and his reign call for a careful investigation of historiographic issues that include both Christian and Roman sources for reconstructing the political situation at the time of Domitian. In connection with this period of Roman history, provincial life in Asia requires special study, for that is where the seer and his audience live and is the social, historical situation of which the Book of Revelation is one part.
The Linguistic Vision and the Social Order. The goal throughout this inquiry is to discover ways to integrate the linguistic vision of the seer with public, social realities or, better, to recognize that the vision itself is a social reality. Each dimension of social activity has its own distinctive structures, forms, and modes of entering into the larger social process; but, as one of those dimensions, apocalyptic language—its generic conventions and symbolic constructions—does not operate in some realm different from other social activity. Acts of speech, writing, and reading enter into the stream of social activity as much as do military victories, economic oppression, or legal actions. Faithful recipients of an apocalypse gain true knowledge about the cosmos, religion, the political order, local economic transactions, and the nature of social life. I seek a framework for integrating literary, conceptual, and social aspects of apocalyptic so that the language, religious sensibilities, and social political experience of the writer, readers, and hearers of the Book of Revelation can be seen as aspects or dimensions of an order of wholeness; for that reflects how language and symbols operate in human life and, more importantly, reflects how language and symbols operate in the Book of Revelation.
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In considering the linguistic unity of Revelation, I have thus far been concerned with the shape of the language itself: how words, phrases, sentences, and larger forms are related in Revelation through narrative and metaphoric devices or through liturgical language. The language of the seer, however, yields other secrets than its own shape; it also transmits a vision of the world or a construction of reality. The choice of terms is important here. The vision transmitted by the seer is not merely a “literary world” or a “symbolic universe”—a vision separate from the everyday life of John and his audience. The seer is constructing an encompassing vision that includes everyday, social realities in Asia Minor.
The seer's vision or his construction of reality becomes accessible to us through the language he uses. Thus, in discussing the seer's vision of an unbroken world, our focus remains on the language of the Book of Revelation; but now our concern is with the semantics of that language (its meaning and reference) rather than its syntax (the structure and relationships of phrases and sentences). In the jargon of some linguists, the shift is from linguistic signs as signifiers to linguistic signs as signified. In saying that, we must be careful. The shift does not involve a turn outward, for example, to the “social, historical situation.” That is a further step to be explored in part 3. The seer's vision of the world is discovered through exploring the semantics of his language. That exploration is a step in the direction of understanding the social situation of Christians in Asia Minor, but the compass here remains the linguistic construction of the seer.
By understanding the seer's vision as an unbroken world, I offer an alternative to some recent theories about the Book of Revelation. Several scholars uncover a world of conflict in Revelation, a conflict between the seer's religious faith and his experience of Roman society. According to “conflict” theorists the syntax of Revelation alternates from sections of the text affirming religious victory, salvation, and Christian dominion to sections acknowledging social persecution, Christian defeat, and Roman dominion. As we saw in chapter 3, the interconnectedness of the seer's language raises questions about that kind of analysis. The intertwining of narrative and metaphoric elements makes it impossible to divide the text into sets of oppositions. Rather than alternating between clearly demarcated sections of woe and weal, the seer's language is unified syntactically.
A person may, however, write in a style that is unified syntactically and at the same time construct a world of conflict and opposition. So we may pose the following questions about the Book of Revelation: What vision of reality becomes transparent in the seer's apocalyptic language? Does the seer envision a world in which certain elements are in essential conflict with other elements? Does integration and interconnectedness occur only on the syntactical level in the Book of Revelation and not on the semantic level? On the semantic level—the level of meaning and reference—does the seer's language disclose a world of conflict, tension, and crisis? If it does, the interconnections of the syntactical aspects of the seer's language would disguise and dissemble; they would be hiding a world of conflicts and contradictions. However odd that notion may appear, that is the assumption of certain kinds of structural analyses of the Book of Revelation: the interconnections of the seer's language are intended to hide the serious conflicts and contradictions to which the seer alludes in his writing. In the technical language of structural analysis, the surface structure mediates and blurs the tensions and conflicts in the deep structure of the text.37
In order to delineate the shape and contours of the seer's world I shall rely heavily on the term boundary. As I unravel the spatial metaphor boundary in the following sections, the structure and organization of the seer's world should become clear. It is a complex structure, and that complexity will be clarified by locating the fundamental distinctions and discriminations (i.e., boundaries) the seer makes as he constructs a comprehensive vision of reality. The focus on boundary will also provide opportunity to note the nature of the distinctions the seer makes; that is, distinctions between objects or qualities may be absolute and categorical, or they may be relative, with one object blending into the next. I shall argue that the seer's distinctions (boundaries) are of the latter kind, not absolute, firm, or hard, but, rather, blurred and soft.
BOUNDARY SITUATIONS
Since boundary will recur in different contexts in what follows, I should comment on the term itself. Boundary is a term associated with space and spatial demarcations. In common usage boundary refers to the outside perimeter of a space: my property is bounded by a curb on the front and a fence behind, that is, the curb and the fence mark the extent of my property, the limits of my land. This common usage of boundary as an “outside” limit or perimeter depends on the perspective of one who is inside the boundaries. From an “inside” position boundaries mark the limits of my property; and if the boundary fence is high enough that I cannot see over it, my dog and I will experience the boundary as the limit or extent of space. If, however, I fly over my land in an airplane, the boundaries will be seen quite differently: from that lofty perspective those boundaries mark out and separate my property from other property. Rather than the boundary being a limit or an outside perimeter, a boundary is seen as a mark between two things. In fact, without the boundary the two things might not be distinguishable. Without the fence there would not be two properties, only one. Thus, one can say that a boundary not only marks differences, it creates them. A boundary separates and delineates, thereby making a difference where otherwise there would be no difference.
In considering the boundaries that delineate the contours of the seer's world, I view that world from above, as from an airplane. From that viewpoint his boundaries are not outer limits but dividers that create differences and distinctions among the objects in his world. Just as we can learn about how land is controlled by noting where boundaries are placed, so we can learn about the seer's world—fundamental distinctions, values, commitments—by noting where he places boundaries and thereby creates differences. No sharp distinctions need be made between spatial boundaries in the seer's world (heaven, earth, sun, rivers) and boundaries in other sets of relations. Boundary can be used in any analysis that locates a set of relations as a “topographical arrangement in space” (Jaspers 1970, 177).
To put it differently, a boundary is formed when two different qualities, objects, or forces come together.38 A social boundary divides life inside the Christian community from life outside. By paying attention to that social boundary, one can learn a lot about how the Christian community is defined and differentiated from other social groupings. A literary boundary can be located at Revelation 4:1; two different types of literature come together there: seven messages to the seven churches (1:9-3:22) and the ensuing visions (4:1-11:19). By paying attention to literary boundaries in the Book of Revelation, one learns about the structure of the seer's book. One can map out values and morality in John's world by locating divisions between good and evil, that is, where the boundaries between good and evil occur. Insofar as the distinction between good and evil depends upon those boundaries—without them the distinction could not be made—one can also see from the boundaries how the author of the Book of Revelation creates the categories of good and evil as they relate to his world vision.
In brief, I seek to map out the seer's world comprehensively. By mapping the regions, distinctions, and differentiations in the seer's vision of reality, I shall locate boundaries in the seer's world; and those boundaries, in turn, will disclose some of the fundamental structures and networks of relations central to the seer's construction of reality. By proceeding in that manner, I will never abstract the fundamental structures and networks from the specific distinctions and discriminations that the seer makes in his world construction.
BOUNDARIES IN EXPECTED PLACES
The seer recognizes commonplace boundaries. He delineates a three-story universe: earth, heaven above the earth, and the abyss below (see Rev. 5:3). Divine forces come down from heaven, and evil forces come up from the abyss. The seer's celestial realm contains the familiar objects of sun, moon, stars, and sometimes the atmospherics of thunder, lightning, and hail. Birds inhabit the sky (more precisely, “midheaven”; see 6:12-13, 8:13, 12:1, 19:17). With respect to earth there are references to hills and islands, wilderness, and various types of water-bodies such as seas, lakes, and streams (e.g., 1:9, 6:14, 7:17, 8:9, 9:14, 12:6, 12:17, 16:20, 19:20). A few plants are mentioned: trees, grass, and plants in general, all of which are specially protected from evil forces.39
The seer mentions animals such as horses, lions, birds, leopards, bears, and frogs (e.g., 6:2, 9:8, 13:2, 16:13, 19:17). Humans are classified as peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations.40 The seer also mentions social classifications such as kings, great ones, rulers of a thousand, the wealthy, the strong, merchants, and those sitting on horses; most of these are associated with evil. People are also contrasted as small and great, wealthy and poor, free and slave (see 6:15, 13:16, 18:3, 19:18). No male/female contrast is made. When considering godly, faithful people, the seer's categories become more refined. He refers to prophets, servants, fellow-servants, brethren, apostles, saints, “my people,” and those fearing God, great and small (see 10:7, 11:10, 18:20, 19:5, 21:3, 22:9).
Sometimes these objects in nature and human characters combine in striking ways to form hybrids. Those hybrids exist in the seer's world as clearly definable objects, but they transgress the normal categories of animal, vegetable, and mineral. By transgressing those ordinary boundary distinctions, the seer creates awesome figures of divinity as well as of monstrous evil. The creator God who sits upon the throne is described by means of images of precious stones, jasper, and carnelian and a rainbow that looks like an emerald (4:3). Heavenly figures around the throne appear like a lion, an eagle, an ox, and a man—all with six wings and full of eyes (4:6-8). A mighty angel comes down from heaven wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, with a face like the sun and legs like pillars of fire (10:1). A woman appears in heaven clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and twelve stars on her head (12:1).
The red dragon of chapter 12 has ten horns and seven heads as well as a tail that sweeps down one-third of the stars of heaven to earth (12:3-4; only evil forces seem to have tails, cf. 9:10, 19). The beast from the sea has ten horns and seven heads. It is like a leopard, its feet are like a bear's, and its mouth is like a lion's (13:1-2). The locusts that come up through the opening from the bottomless abyss combine a stinger like a scorpion and an appearance like horses, though with human faces, women's hair, and lions' teeth (9:7-10).
BLURRED BOUNDARIES AMONG GODLY FORCES
Although the descriptions of God, heavenly creatures, and demonic forces mix categories that are normally kept separate, each of those divine and demonic beings is distinct and separate. In mapping out the different creatures around the throne or the various beasts from the abyss, one finds that each has a distinctive outline that can be drawn in darker hues, like boundaries on a map. Moreover, each has a distinctive place within the three-story universe: the divine forces belong in heaven; evil forces belong below the earth; and earth becomes a place of conflict between the two. Earth contains creatures (primarily humans) who can be identified with either the godly or the evil forces located elsewhere in the universe.
John creates a world with distinct levels and clearly delineated characters; he also presents those levels and characters in such a manner that they invite comparison. For example, beings in different spheres of the universe may share certain characteristics, so that they are bound together even though they are separated by the stories of the universe. So an effulgence (ι̑'ριs) radiates around the one sitting upon the throne (4:3); later that same radiance is present around the head of one of his emissaries (10:1). The face of that same emissary is “like the sun,” a simile which earlier refers to the appearance of the one John saw in his inaugural vision (1:16) and later to the clothing of a woman (12:1). Through that common language, connections and correspondences are made among God on the throne, his Christ, his angels, and other godly beings. Although each may be outlined separately on a map of John's world, each shares common characteristics with the others. Thus, as one becomes familiar with John's creatures, the contours of one evoke the contours of others.
Insofar as Christians are called to imitate their Lord, they come to share characteristics with him. As Christ conquered, so do Christians (3:4-5, 3:21). Moreover, both Christ and Christians conquer through blood. The brethren conquer Satan through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their witness; “they did not love their souls even unto death” (12:11, cf. 6:9). The innumerable crowd before the throne came through the great tribulation and victoriously stood before God with their clothes made white through blood (7:11-17). Sacrificial language, which underlies most of those references, becomes explicit at 14:4 where the 144 thousand “redeemed from mankind” are designated “first fruits for God and the Lamb.”41 Christ and his followers share not only sacrificial associations but also royal priestly characteristics, that is, characteristics of the sacrificer as well as the sacrificed. Both Christ and his followers are “priests to our God” (5:10).42 Followers also share the royal status of sonship and they are given “a name which no one knows,” a parallel to Jesus (see 2:17, 21:7, 19:12).
John also connects the characters in his three-story universe in more subtle ways. The characteristics of certain humans correspond to the characteristics of divine creatures or heavenly places; that is, godly humans have features homologous to divine creatures or divine places or even God himself. Homologous relations are best known from the field of biology, where homologies refer to similar structures with a common origin, for example, the wing of a bat and the foreleg of a mouse. In religious studies, Mircea Eliade has used the term homology to show how religious man is a microcosm of larger cosmic structures (see Eliade 1959, 166-70). In the Book of Revelation, one finds homologies other than in the microcosm/macrocosm relationship. Thus, I use the term to refer to any correspondence of structure, position, or character in the different dimensions of John's world. These homologous relations contribute to the blurring of boundaries in the Apocalypse.
John, for example, creates homologies among certain kinds of clothing, holiness, certain colors, and just deeds. God is holy (ὅσιοs or ἅγιοs), as are his angels, faithful humans, and a city (see 11:2, 11:18, 14:10, 15:4, 16:5). Divine holiness becomes apparent when God reveals his just deeds (τά δικαιωματά, 15:4). Just deeds are also attributed to “holy humans” (οἱ ἅγιοι, 19:8). “Holy humans,” or saints, thus function on the human plane as God's holiness on the divine plane. Further, the just deeds of the saints are identified with the bright, clean, linen garment worn by the Bride of the Lamb (βύσσινον λαμπρὸν καθαρόν, 19:7-8).43 A clean, linen garment is also worn by the seven angels who pour out the seven bowls of plagues (λίνον καθαρὸν λαμπρὸν, 15:6) and by the heavenly army supporting the warring Word of God (βύσσινον λευὸν καθαρόν, 19.14).44 Clothing reflects inner qualities and essential characteristics of those who wear them. Jesus urges the Laodiceans to buy from him white clothing (ἱμὰτια λευκὰ) to wear, so that the shame of their nakedness not be revealed (3:18). Because of the connection between inner and outer, garments are to be “kept” (τηρέω, 16:15)—a verb used elsewhere in Revelation only in connection with commandments, works, and words (e.g., 1:3, 2:26, 3:10, 12:17, 22:7). Christians at Sardis should not stain (μολύνω) their garments but rather walk in white (ἐν λευκοι̑s) with Jesus (3:4).45
As seen from this last example regarding the worthy Sardians, whiteness relates homologously to proper garments, righteous deeds, and holiness. The color is first introduced in the inaugural vision, where Jesus' hair is white as white wool, like snow (1:14). In the messages to the churches, those conquering at Pergamum are promised new names written on a white stone (2:17), those not stained at Sardis will walk with Jesus in white (3:4-5), and those at Laodicea are urged to buy white garments to cover their nakedness (3:18).46 Elsewhere throughout Revelation the twenty-four elders wear white garments (4:4)—as do the slain ones under the altar (6:11); the innumerable crowd before the throne whose garments were made white in the blood of the Lamb (7:9, 14); and the army of the Word of God (19:14). Those people share their colors with the white horse coming forth at the opening of the first seal (6:2, cf. 19:11, 14); the white cloud upon which the one like a Son of Man sat (14:14); and the great white throne of judgment (20:11). The color white thus substitutes in position or structure on the color plane for just judgment, righteous reward, and holiness—themes that span heaven and earth as well as the present and the eschaton.
BLURRED BOUNDARIES AMONG EVIL FORCES
With regard to evil forces the following scenes are the most important: the blowing of the fifth trumpet, which reveals a star falling from heaven and opening the shaft of the bottomless pit (9:1-6); the war against the two prophets by the beast ascending from the bottomless pit (11:7); the sign of the great red dragon, his war in heaven and on earth (12:3-17); the beast from the sea to whom the dragon gives power (13:1-10); the beast from the earth who receives power from the beast of the sea (13:11-18); the scarlet beast with the harlot rider (17:1-14); and the Devil bound and loosed in the bottomless pit (20:1-10).
Several common activities connect these demonic forces: ascending from the bottomless pit; making war against the godly; conquering; deceiving; blaspheming; evoking wonder and worship; having authority, power, and kingship. These forces also share common features, that is, seven heads, ten horns, redness, and certain nomenclature. Sometimes they relate in more subtle ways to each other. At 9:11 the angel ruling the abyss is called Apollyon. Revelation 17:8 rings changes on abyss/Apollyon, for there the scarlet beast goes up from the abyss to apoleian (“destruction”).47 That repeated association blends the angel ruling the abyss (9:11) with the scarlet beast from the abyss (17:8). Through numerical equivalence in the plague sequences—the fifth trumpet and the fifth bowl—a connection is also made between the angel ruling the abyss and the beast from the sea (9:11, 16:10-11).48 The various beasts described in the Book of Revelation are thus variations on one another. So, for example, the beast from the abyss—introduced abruptly in 11:7—is a transformation or manifestation of the ruler of the abyss in 9:11. At 16:13 a new evil is introduced in the form of a false prophet, but he is not all that new in Revelation, for he shares characteristics with the beast from the earth in 13:11.49 Through these associations, the identities of the following are blended together, that is, the boundaries separating them are not absolute and hard: Apollyon (9:11); beast from the abyss (11:7); beast from the sea (13:1); beast from the land (13:11); false prophet (16:13); scarlet beast (17:3); the dragon, ancient serpent, Devil, and Satan (20:2, 7); and the opponent of Michael (12:9).
The Great Whore Babylon shares several qualities and functions with those beasts and with other evil forces. Like the beast from the sea, she is incomparable (18:18, cf. 13:4). She shares the color scarlet with the evil beast (17:3-4, 18:16). She causes deception among the nations (18:23), as do the beasts. As sorcerer and one committing abominations, she shares qualities with those evil ones who cannot enter the New Jerusalem (17:5; 18:23; 21:8, 27; 22:15). Finally, she “falls” and becomes a “haunt” (ϕυλακή, 18:2), just as Satan is cast into a “prison” (ϕυλακή, 20:7).50
Like the forces of good, those evil figures have their followers. The kings of the earth are frequently linked to one of these demonic figures (e.g., 9:7, 17:12, 19:19). Others are identified with the demonic by an iconic stamp on the right hand or forehead, which in connection with the beast of the earth (equals false prophet) is said to provide the economic freedom of buying and selling (13:16-17). They are deceived by the false prophet to worship the beast (19:20), but ultimately they shall share with the other demonic forces torment of fire and sulfur (14:9-11).
Finally, there are striking homologies between opponents of the faithful in the seven churches and demonic figures elsewhere in the Apocalypse. The nomenclature of evil is used several times in the letters: those at Smyrna are warned that the Devil is about to throw some in prison (2:10). The Devil is, of course, the dragon of chapter 12, who reappears in chapter 20; the prison (ϕυλακή), moreover, in which the Smyrnians are about to be thrown is a horror like the one from which Satan is loosed in chapter 20 and the one into which the Great Whore falls (18:2). Satan's throne at Pergamum (2:13) forms a homologue with the throne of the beast (9:11, 16:10); references to the deep things of Satan (2:24) and to the synagogue of Satan (2:9, 3:9) also link the church's opposition to the demonic. Those of the synagogue of Satan claiming to be Jews blaspheme (2:9), which is otherwise done only by the beast from the sea and the scarlet beast. The prophetess Jezebel, a teacher of whom John does not approve, deceives those at Thyatira—an activity practiced only by Satan, the beast of the earth, and Babylon the Whore. Moreover, her teachings include the practice of fornication; elsewhere in the Apocalypse that term is associated with Babylon the Great Whore (Rev. 17-19), the Balaamites (2:14), and those who at the eschaton have to stay outside the New Jerusalem (22:15) and burn in the lake of sulfur (21:8). Thus, prophetic groups in the churches, Babylon the Great Whore, and those condemned at the eschaton share characteristics and function homologously in their respective planes.
SOFT BOUNDARIES
Blurred boundaries among forces of evil, on the one hand, and godly forces, on the other, could simply reinforce the notion that there are sharp contrasts in the Book of Revelation between those two camps: Satan and his followers versus God and his faithful. The two groups are set in opposition, and readers/hearers are called on to decide for one or the other. Those with the mark of the beast are thrown into the lake of fire, the second death (19:20, 20:14); and those whose names are in the Lamb's book of life shall enter into the New Jerusalem (21:27). The Laodiceans are called on to display a clear-cut position: be either hot or cold but not lukewarm (3:15-16). Much of the Apocalypse describes conflict between those two groups of forces: those in the churches against their adversaries, two prophets against the beast, woman against dragon, saints against the beasts, witnesses against the Whore Babylon, riders on white horses against false prophet. Their conflicts are described with military language of warring, battles, armies, weapons, victories, and defeats.51
Although the seer marks his boundaries well—often as battle lines—those boundaries between good and evil are not hard and impenetrable borders separating the two into separate, limited spheres. Even here distinctions are blurred and boundaries are soft. Evil contrasts with the godly, but evil is not of a fundamentally different order from good. Humans belong to the earthly plane, the divine belong to heaven above, and the demonic belong to the plane below; but those three tiers of the seer's universe are not separated absolutely. Social categories on earth are not impassable, for there are not absolutely bounded divisions among humans. Even divisions of time—past, present, and future—cannot be hardened into “the evil present” and “the blessed future.”
SOFT BOUNDARIES BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL
At points in the Book of Revelation, the Lamb and various beasts form dyadic relationships, that is, they become doubles, split images of some more fundamental wholeness. One of the heads of the beast from the sea is described “as slain” (13:3); the same expresson is used of the Lamb in the throne scene (5:6).52 Further, the beast is healed of his mortal wound so that he lives. By dying and yet living (13:14) he is comparable to Jesus who became a corpse and lived (2:8).53 A similar pattern is repeated in the description of the scarlet beast who was, and is not, and is to come (17:8). The Lamb and the beast from the sea also share a similar hierarchical position in their respective communities: each is an agent to a higher sovereign (3:21; 12:10; 13:2, 4), yet each is worthy in his own right to receive power and authority from those below (5:12, 17:13); and each wears the royal insignia of diadems (13:1, 19:12, cf. 12:3). Each thus serves as icon of the sovereign above (3:14, 13:14-15) while forming a worshipping community around himself (cf. Schüssler Fiorenza 1981, 134) with the mark of the beast and the seal of the Lamb functioning homologously in their respective communities.
Soft boundaries also separate feminine images of good and evil. Babylon and Jerusalem—feminine images of cities—embody homologues and similar qualities. Both are clothed with fine linen and bedecked with gold, jewels, and pearls (18:16; 19:8; 21:18-19, 21), and both function as sexual partners in their respective systems (18:3, 19:7-8). Great city usually refers to Babylon (Rev. 17-18) but may refer to either Babylon or Jerusalem (16:19); and Jerusalem, the city of God, can even be understood “spiritually” as “Sodom and Egypt” (11:8).54 In this transformation of Jerusalem Christian interpretation is clearly at work, but the prophets of old also refer to such a metamorphosis of the holy city (cf. Lam. 4:6, Isa. 13:19, Jer. 22:6).55 The fluidity between godly and demonic cities in the seer's visions points to a common structure within good and evil in the Apocalypse.56
Woman in the Apocalypse also moves fluidly between good and evil. At 12:14 the woman who recently gave birth—clearly a figure embodying godly associations—flees into the wilderness from the dragon. In the next reference to wilderness, John is introduced in the Spirit to the woman on the scarlet beast full of blasphemous names (17:3). If the wilderness passages are taken strictly sequentially, the good woman has been transformed in the wilderness into the evil woman on the beast. Wilderness would thus function symbolically as a place similar to chaos with transformational potential for judgment, deliverance, nourishment, punishment, death, and rebirth (12:6, 17:16, cf. Thompson 1978, 95-96, 193).57
Even God and Satan, the epitome of good and evil respectively, are not separated by hard, impervious boundaries. Several common aspects blur their boundaries, especially images and symbols related to sovereignty and worship. As God is enthroned, so is Satan (2:13, 4:2). Satanic locusts have golden crowns on their heads like the twenty-four elders around the throne of God (4:4, 9:7), and God and Babylon the Whore are said to rule as king or queen (15:4, 17:18). As supernatural forces with their own spirits (16:14, 22:6), both God and demonic forces are worshipped and glorified (4:11, 13:4, 15:4, 18:7). Through a word play on the Greek word θυμόs, God and the Whore offer a similar wine drink to others: all the nations and the kings of the earth drink from the wine of the θυμόs of her fornication (14:8, 18:3), and God will give to her and to all those worshipping the beast a drink from the wine of the θυμόs of his wrath (14:10, 16:19). The translation (RSV) of her θυμόs as “impure passion” and of God's as “wrath” reflects the play on the word and one way the seer uses word plays to relate apparently opposing forces.
SOFT BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SPATIAL PLANES
Although humans belong to the earthly plane, the divine belong to heaven above, and the demonic belong to the plane below, those three levels of the seer's universe are not separated absolutely. Creatures descend or ascend through the universe; and as they pass through the different levels, they are transformed in other ways. Movement through spatial planes functions as a transformational experience.
Utilizing the image of an open door, John describes his ascent to heaven (4:1). As he ascends, he is transformed simultaneously from earth to heaven, from a normal to a “spiritual” psychological state, and from the present to the future. Space, time, and psychological state are assimilated to one another, forming a series of correspondences among different planes (4:2). “Going up” (spatial plane) forms a homology with “in the spirit” (psychological plane) and with an eschatological vision (temporal plane).58 Once translated into heaven, John is able to see such heavenly visions as the throne of God; the three series of seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls; the fall of Satan and various demonic forces; conflict between divine and demonic armies; and finally, the New Jerusalem.
Elsewhere a cloud becomes the means of moving through the heaven/earth boundary. At 1:7 John declares that Jesus will come on a cloud (cf. 14:14); at 10:1 an angel comes down from heaven clothed in a cloud; and the two witnessing prophets in chapter 11 go up to heaven on a cloud (11:12). Otherwise, movement to and from heaven is signified simply by verbs of motion. John and the two prophets “ascend” (ἀναβαίνω) from earth to heaven (4:1, 11:12). Angels “descend” (καταβαίνω) from heaven (10:1, 18:1, 20:1)—as do the New Jerusalem (3:12, 21:2), fire (20:9), hail (16:21), and the Devil (12:12). Fire from the altar is thrown (8:5) or poured out (16:2) upon the earth from heaven; in its transformational descent the fire becomes a destructive force.59
Passage also occurs between earth and that demonic sphere below the earth. By opening that shaft to the abyss below (cf. the “open door” to heaven), locusts from that demonic plane pass onto the earth (9:1), or Satan and his surrogates move back and forth from earth to the realm below.60 Through images of locks, keys, chains, seals, loosing, and binding John is able to describe controlled movement between earth and Hades (9:1, 20:1-3). Since the realm below represents not only the demonic but also death, movement to and from that realm may also occur in the form of transformation from death to life, or resurrection.61
The demonic plane can claim no independent reality, for it derives from the heavenly, divine plane above. Demonic power becomes operative on earth when a “star” fallen from heaven is given a key to open the shaft to the abyss below (9:1). This “star”—in origin from heaven—is apparently later identified as the angel Abaddon or Apollyon, who rules over the bottomless pit (9:11)—and still later as the scarlet beast (17:8).
In chapter 12 a similar transformation occurs when Satan “falls” from heaven. Between two versions of a story about conflict between the evil red dragon and the good pregnant woman, the seer inserts a narrative about the heavenly origin of Satan, the ancient serpent and great dragon called the Devil (12:7-12).62 It is a striking narrative, for it tells how Satan—the most powerful and concentrated image of evil in Revelation—once served in the divine court. Satan, the ancient serpent, the Devil, emerges here as a transformation of heavenly, divine realities. More specifically, that dragon (hypostatized evil) served in heaven as judge and assessor, that is, as a judicial dimension of God and his heavenly powers (12:10, cf. Job 1:6-12, 1 Enoch 40:7).63 Through transformational symbols of descent and conflict Satan—whose authority and power lie behind all other evil forces in Revelation—is seen to metamorphose from the divine.64
SOFT BOUNDARIES IN SOCIAL CATEGORIES
The transformational movement through space has its homologues in the churches of Asia Minor. Social categories distinguishing faithful from unfaithful are not bounded by impassable borders. Furthermore, the social categories are themselves a mixture of different statuses. Those at Laodicea, for example, appear rich, prosperous, and faithful; but they are in reality poor, wretched, pitiable, and naked (3:17); and those at Smyrna appear to be poor but are really rich (2:9).65 The faithful are admonished lest they fall: first loves may be abandoned (2:4-5); those once alive may become dead (3:1); faithfulness is called for (2:10, 19); garments must be kept (16:15). Only those who persevere to the end will conquer (2:10-11). On the other side, the faithless are urged to be transformed through the alchemy of repentance (μετάνοια, cf. 2:5, 16). A deceiving, self-acclaiming prophetess like Jezebel, who functions and has attributes like the beasts and the dragon, can repent along with her followers (2:21-23). Even the most blasphemous have the possibility of transformation through repentance and can cross the boundary from unfaith to faith (16:9, 11). All can “open the door” (3:20). In the New Jerusalem the probabilities of change diminish, but even there the unfaithful may still have the possibility of repentance. Just as there is ultimately no fundamental dualism between heaven and earth, so there is no final “dualistic division of humanity.”66
SOFT BOUNDARIES IN TIME
Time takes a curious turn in the Book of Revelation, for past, present, and future are not separated by fixed, absolute boundaries. The seer, rising above time as in an airplane, takes a transcendent view and traces the past, the present, and the future on his temporal map. Boundaries in the future are as visible to him as boundaries of the past, and those future boundaries share characteristics and homologies with present and past. John sees both “what is and what is to take place hereafter” (1:19), and John's God is “the one who is and was and is to come” (1:4, 2:8). The seer's temporal map is analogous to a conductor's score: the conductor “sees” all parts of the score, that which has been played, that which is being played, and that which will be played. Moreover, the spatial arrangement of time in a musical score discloses patterns, motifs, and variations among past, present, and future. The seer, like the conductor, can range freely through time, catching patterns and motifs in his mapping of the aeons. Time can thus be understood as a “topographical arrangement in space,” for John portrays the temporal “end” as a detailed mapping of space, that is, as a city let down from heaven.
From the seer's transcendent view of time there is no hard division between the present age and the age to come. No hard boundary separates “the new heavens and new earth” (Rev. 21:1) from the “first heaven and the first earth.” The “new” emerges in time as a transformation of the “old.” As the first disappears (21:1, ἀπη̑λθαν), the new comes into being (21:1, 2, 5).67 The one on the throne declared, “Behold, I make all things new [καινὰ]” (21:5). The “new” contrasts with the “old”; but there is a continuity of substance, whether it be a name (2:17), a song (5:9, 14:3), or heaven and earth (21:1).68 καινόs (“new”) could better be translated “renewal” or even “restoration,” for the portrayal of the “new” borrows heavily from descriptions of paradise from of old. Then the seer was told, “γέγοναν” (21:6), a term translated variously as “It is done,” “All is over,” or “These words are already fulfilled.” This term, however, also signifies transformation or metamorphosis. Elsewhere in Revelation it is used to indicate transformation into the Spirit (1:10), transformation from life to death (1:18), the sun into blackness (6:12), and water into blood (8:8). The perfect tense of this verb in 21:6 can thus be translated, “All has been transformed.” By means of these terms the seer describes “a drastic transformation of existence” typical of eschatological portrayals in the New Testament, but he suggests no sharp dualism between this age and the age to come (see Beardslee 1970, 228).69
That eschatological transformation completes what has occurred in the coming of the Christ and is occurring in Christian existence. In a manner distinctive to Revelation the description of the coming of Christ in glory is laced with images of death and the cross. In the Gospels apocalyptic announcements (e.g., Mark 13) are in form and content clearly delineated from the Passion narrative and descriptions of Christ's weakness and humiliation.70 Paul also keeps the irony of present Christian existence clearly separate from apocalyptic phenomena: humiliation, crucifixion, weakness, and foolishness are not part of Paul's apocalyptic scenarios (1 Cor. 1, 4:8-13; 2 Cor. 4:10; cf. 1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4:16). In Revelation, however, the apocalyptic Christ comes as “the pierced one” (1:7) and the messianic “Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” is revealed as “the slain Lamb” who is worthy through being slain (Rev. 5:1-14). From the seer's first vision to the final victory of the Word of God seated on a white horse and clothed in a garment soaked in blood (19:13), imagery of sacrifice, blood, and death permeates the visions of the mighty apocalyptic figure. Through that mixing of imagery, Jesus' parousia overlays his “first coming” to produce a picture of a mighty warrior as a crucified Lamb. The first and second “coming” of Christ cannot be differentiated as two distinct eras with a clear boundary between them; the second is a radical transformation begun with the first.
There is a permanence to the crucified Lamb that cannot be captured by locating the crucifixion in time, for example “under Pontius Pilate” or “in the first century of the Common Era.” To put it differently, the crucifixion is much more than a momentary event in history. That permanence is captured in the Book of Revelation through spatial, not temporal, imagery. The “slain Lamb” appears not only on earth but also in heaven, close to the throne (5:6). The Lamb was not slain at a particular moment in time; rather the Lamb was slain before time. The seer describes that time in spatial language: the Lamb was slain “from the foundation of the world” (13:8, cf. 17:8). The crucifixion is enfolded in the “deep,” permanent structures of the seer's vision, and it unfolds in the life of Jesus and those who are his faithful followers. Christian imitation of Jesus through martyrdom and suffering and the homologies formed between Jesus and his followers can thus be seen as temporal unfoldings of a “deeper” order in the seer's world.
Just as John's eschatological visions (time) can be portrayed spatially as a city, so place (topos) is not a fixed, bounded space but a situation with a temporal dimension: in Revelation place is bound up with destiny and contingency. The woman flees into the wilderness to a place prepared for her (12:6, 14); no place is found for the Devil in heaven after the battle with Michael (12:8); if the Ephesians don't repent, their lampstand will be removed from its place (2:5). Items in nature such as islands and hills—even heaven and earth—do not have fixed places (6:14, 20:11).
Homologies connect the heavenly throne (space), the eschatological Jerusalem (time), and the earthly temple at Jerusalem (space). The precious stones in the heavenly throne scene (4:3, 6) derive not from traditional throne descriptions in apocalyptic literature but from descriptions of the eschatological Jerusalem (Rev. 21:11, 18-20, cf. Isa. 54:12). Only the throne (4:2) and the New Jerusalem (21:16) are predicated by the Greek verb κει̑μαι, indicating “situatedness” or “fixed location of place” (in contrast to topos above). In the temple at Jerusalem (11:1-2) a spatial boundary divides the temple proper from the court outside. The court can be profaned by the nations, but the temple cannot. So with the New Jerusalem “nothing unclean shall enter it, nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life” (21:27, cf. 21:8). Yarbro Collins suggests that the courtyard/temple boundary also parallels the earthly/heavenly boundary in the Apocalypse (1984, 68). The Jerusalem temple and the eschatological city are further linked by the activity of measuring, for only in relation to those two is a measuring rod (κάλαμοs) mentioned (11:1, 21:15). Parallels between heavenly throne scenes in the Apocalypse and the Jerusalem temple are fairly obvious (cf. Thompson 1969, 337). Heavenly sacrifices create smoke so thick that no one can enter the temple (15:8). Inside the heavenly temple stands the ark of the covenant or the tent of witness (11:19, 15:5). Through such homologies the sacral space of the Jerusalem temple, the heavenly throne scenes, and the eschatological Jerusalem are overlaid in the mapping of the seer's world. Not only are distinctions blurred among past, present, and future, but also time and space are related as coordinates of a common order.
TRANSFORMATIONS, INNER STRUCTURES, AND RATIOS
At the beginning of the discussion on boundary I noted that from a transcendent position, such as in an airplane, a boundary appears not as a limit or outside perimeter but as a divider marking differences. It is from this lofty position that we have mapped boundaries, locating distinctions and categories fundamental in the seer's world. These categorical distinctions in space, time, gender, or moral qualities are created by the seer. For example, he distinguishes between good and evil, heaven and earth, or faithful and nonfaithful in distinctive ways. Thus, as a world-maker, the seer not only marks differences, he creates differences. He creates a three-story universe rather than a universe with four or seven tiers. He delineates in great detail distinctions among those faithful to God (e.g., prophets, servants, apostles, saints). He blends color, gender, and moral terms to create feminine figures of purity or corruption. In brief, the seer creates a distinctive world by marking out differences that are established at and by boundaries. Boundaries may thus be understood as places where differences touch one another: a boundary is formed when two different qualities, objects, or forces are contiguous. A boundary sets up how these differences are delineated and how “solid” the separation is between them.
In the seer's world we have seen that the boundaries are not very “solid”; they are soft boundaries that blur sharp distinctions. So, for example, the boundary between Christ and Christians is not impervious. Godly objects share characteristics and homologues such as holiness, whiteness, and linen. The various beasts ring changes on each other as they process through the book. More striking are the soft boundaries between good and evil. Beasts and Lamb form dyads; Bride and Whore form counterparts; Jerusalem and Babylon become confused; Satan derives from an aspect of the divine.
As we explored these blurred relations and soft boundaries, the term transformation crept into the discussion. Transformation became especially prominent when we traced movement across boundaries—whether spatial, social, or temporal. Heaven remains separate from earth, and earth from the abyss, but doors open to allow John and other beings to move between one plane and another. Social boundaries are not hard and fixed. The faithful may “fall,” and the faithless may repent. Even the boundary between this aeon and the age to come blurs differences on either side: the new is a transformation of the old, begun with the crucifixion of Jesus which has been “from the foundation of the world.”
A boundary separates differences, but it is possible to cross over the boundary. Crossing, however, involves a transformation; characters do not pass through the open door of boundaries and remain untouched. When Satan descends, he is transformed; so is John when he ascends. Passage through a boundary simultaneously transforms the object from what is on one side to what is on the other, that is, earth to heaven, faithfulness to unfaithfulness, good to evil. The phrase transformational boundary describes this particular aspect of a boundary situation; that is, a boundary not only locates where differences touch each other; it becomes a place where differences can be transformed into each other.
There is a dynamism to boundaries in the Book of Revelation. Boundaries do not fix limits beyond which it is impossible to pass. Rather, they locate the place where transformations occur, allowing a flow across planes, eras, social categories, or moral values. At the most fundamental level, the seer envisions reality as a world in process, a flow of becoming, a sequence of transformations that unfolds into various planes, eras, qualities, and objects.71
From considering the transformational aspect of the seer's boundaries one could conclude that the seer's world is a muddle of confusion—that anything can be changed into anything and that transformations occur randomly and without design or guidance. One wonders, Are there forces or channels guiding the transformations that occur at the seer's boundaries, or are they random and directionless occurrences? The answer is easy: there are guiding forces. Getting at those guiding forces, however, is not so easy. An important clue to guiding forces is given in the earlier discussion of homologies. There we noted that homologies contributed to the blurring of boundaries, for different aspects of John's world are brought into relation with one another, for example, spatial movement, psychological state, and moral character are simultaneously transformed when the seer goes into heaven. The blurring is not, however, random: homologies point to similarities in the transformations that occur; a definitive relationship is formed between going up into heaven and entering a spiritual state, or moving down from heaven and entering a demonic state. The contour or shape of one boundary is replicated in another. Those replicated contours point the way to fundamental structures and guiding channels in the seer's world. Put differently, the set of relations formed at one boundary is similar to the set of relations formed at another. They are similar because there is an inner structure implicated in every boundary situation that unfolds in all boundary situations.
MEASURES AND NUMBERS
The seer's use of numbers illustrates how relationships and sets of relationships rather than individual characteristics disclose inner structures of his world. First of all, the seer seems to view numbers and their measurements as an entree into the essential structure of a thing. Measurements of the temple (11:1-2) or the number of the beast (13:18) reveals something fundamental, the essence—at least for those who have understanding and wisdom (13:18, 17:9).
The activity of measuring occurs only two times in the Apocalypse: in connection with the New Jerusalem (21:15-17) and the temple of God (11:1-2).72 Measuring the New Jerusalem and the temple is not primarily a way of comparing them with some external unit of measure such as a cubit stick. In fact, in chapter 11 no mention is made of an external unit such as cubits or stadia. Measurement is bound up with what is intrinsic to the object being measured. For example, only the temple proper, the altar, and those worshipping—all of which reflect the sanctity of the holy place—are measured. That which is not holy is not appropriately measured in the same measurement. Ezekiel makes the same connection between measurement and sanctity in Ezek. 40-48: there descriptions of measuring alternate with descriptions of the holiness of temple, city, and land. The extent of measurement marks the boundary, in the cases of both Ezekiel and Revelation 11, of that which is essentially holy.73 The actual numbers in measurements—for example the 144, 12, and 1,000 in the New Jerusalem and the sealed of the tribes—outwardly correspond to an inner, essential measure rather than to some external standard of measurement.74
A number such as that of the beast—666—may be a numerical code to be translated into some name such as Nero, Domitian, or Hitler, but if so, the code book has been lost. Moreover, a specific number does not necessarily carry a particular significance in the Apocalypse: six does not necessarily signify “evil and incompleteness,” nor seven “completeness and fulfillment” (Sweet 1979, 14-15). The creatures around the heavenly throne have six wings, and the dragon, along with the first beast, has seven heads. More often in the Book of Revelation, measures and numbers disclose inner structures. As Sweet suggests, numbers embody “structural elements of the cosmos,” manifested in their relations and ratios (1979, 14). If the sixes in the number of the beast are linked to the sixth seal, sixth trumpet, and sixth bowl—all of which allude to the great, prepared day of the wrath of God on which final conflicts with evil occur—the number is associated with penultimacy and evil destruction.
The repetition of the numbers 12, 144, and 1,000 in 7:4-8 and 21:16-17 creates meaning by connecting “people of God” to “the eternal sanctuary provided by God” (Mounce 1977, 381). More specifically, the 144 cubits of the wall of the city connect to the 144 thousand sealed ones redeemed by God (7:4-8); and the incomparably larger cubed city—twelve thousand stadia long, wide, and high—relates to the great multitude that cannot be counted (7:9-12). Or if that specific connection cannot be sustained, the following ratio can be: 144 cubits of wall are to the 144 thousand redeemed as the twelve-thousand-stadia city-cube is to the totality of those redeemed.75 In that way the individual measurements of wall and city, which make no sense as specific, individual dimensions, take on significance.
BOUNDARIES AND RATIOS
The term ratio is often limited to relationships among numbers, but it need not be. The same is true with the term rational. Both derive from the same Latin root and may refer to numbers, but both ratio and rational belong to the sphere of another cognate, reason. All of those cognates refer to fundamental insight a person gains after seeing essential connections and fundamental structures. Newton's insight into gravitation can be expressed as a universal proportion or ratio: as the apple falls, so the moon, and so everything (see Bohm 1983, 21); and that universal proportion discloses something essential in the Newtonian worldview. To grasp essential ratios is to comprehend aspects of an inner structure that unfolds to create a comprehensive vision of the world (see Bohm 1983, 20).
Ratio is a useful term for underscoring the importance of relationships and sets of relationships rather than individuals per se. Just as individual numbers do not disclose insight into the seer's world, so one specific boundary situation does not disclose an understanding of inner structures of the seer's world. Those inner structures are comprehended by comparing boundary situations. As we saw earlier, there are similarities in the contours or shapes of boundaries in the Book of Revelation; thus there are similarities among the transformations that occur at different boundaries in that book. Those similarities in contours and transformations derive from inner, guiding structures that can be formulated as ratios and universal proportions in the seer's world. Thus, by tracing ratios or proportions throughout boundary situations in every dimension of the seer's world, one can disclose fundamental aspects of the structure of that world: God is to Satan as the Lamb is to the beast, as the faithful are to those who deceive, as the Christian minority is to the larger Roman world; heaven is to earth as the eschatological future is to the present, as the temple is to the space around it, as cultic activity of worship is to everyday activity, as being in the Spirit is to normal consciousness. Ratios and proportions can be formed among social, political, religious, theological, and psychological aspects of the seer's vision because all of those aspects unfold an order implicated and replicated throughout the seer's world.
Relationships and transformations at boundary situations tend to be either of two kinds: homologies or contrasts. One of them is usually more prominent. For example, in the letter to those at Smyrna a homology is made between Satan and those who claim to be Jews (2:9), whereas in chapter 12 the “descent of Satan” transforms an aspect of heaven into its contrasting opposite. Both homologies and contrasts are, however, implicit in every boundary situation. Those who claim to be Jews are homologous to Satan because they oppose true Christians who are homologous to God. Satan's “fall” which transforms him into an opponent of God is homologous to the “fall” of Christians such as those at Ephesus (2:5) and contrasts to the reverse movement of “repentance” offered to Jezebel (2:21).76 Ratios may be formed among any of those various elements: God is to Satan as the faithful (true Jews) are to those who claim to be Jews. Those Jews are to Satan as the faithful are to God. God is to those Jews as Satan is to the faithful. In brief, boundaries channel a discrete segment of “flow” or “becoming” into a homologous or contrasting element along lines consonant with that inner structure reflected at every boundary. Conversely, by tracing the various ratios among homologues and contrarieties, one discloses the fundamental structure implicated in every boundary.
Sexual expressions in Revelation can illustrate that disclosure. Babylon the Great can boast of many sexual exploits. All the kings of the earth fornicate with her, and those dwelling on earth become drunk from the wine of her sexual passion (14:8, 17:2, 18:3). Babylon is therefore called the Great Whore (17:1), full of abominations and uncleannesses from her fornication (17:4). She destroys the earth by her fornicating (19:2). The same term (πορνεύω) is used of Jezebel, the prophetess at Thyatira, who deceived “my servants” into fornicating and who does not seem to want to repent from her fornication (2:20-21, cf. 2:14). Implicit in this homology is a contrasting element to complete the ratio: Babylon is to Jezebel as X is to the faithful Christians. X is, of course, the Bride of the Lamb, who is clothed in fine, bright, pure linen (19:7-8) and who comes down from heaven as the eschatological Jerusalem (21:9-10).77
A related homologue occurs in descriptions of eschatological events of judgment and salvation: fornicators experience the “second death,” namely, burning in the lake of fire and sulfur (21:8), which is apparently equivalent to dwelling outside the city gates of the heavenly Jerusalem (22:15).78 Those condemned to the second death contrast with those at Smyrna who conquer (2:11) and with those who share the “first resurrection” and reign as priests with Christ for a thousand years (20:6).79 They are obviously the ones who will live inside the New Jerusalem, participating in such activities as eating of the tree of life in the restored paradise of God (see 2:7). Fornication is to nonfornication as being outside the New Jerusalem is to being inside the city, as being outside the church proper is to being inside the church proper.80
As can be seen from this examination of sexuality, almost any boundary in the seer's world can unwind through quantum leaps into religious, social, political, and psychological realities. No one boundary or one kind of boundary can claim a privileged position in that unwinding. Every boundary reiterates every other as proportions are formed among heavenly worship and Christian celebration, appreciation of Roman culture and demonic excess, political power and insubordination before God, Jewish claims and apostasy to Satan, church boundaries and the boundaries of paradise, or ironic kingship and Christian witness. Any and every object that John encounters gains meaning by taking its place on a boundary in the seer's world and entering into his network of homologies and contrarieties.
CONCLUSIONS
In the seer's world boundaries do not seem to reinforce fundamental conflicts and antagonisms between religious promises and social disappointments, bodily mortality and spiritual hopes of immortality, or natural impulses and cultural demands; rather, boundaries provide points of transaction whereby religious promises, social encounters, biological givens, and cultural demands undergo mutual adjustments, form homologous relations, and contribute to the coherence, integrity, and wholeness of Christian existence.
If there was irreconcilable contradiction among religious, social, biological, and cultural dimensions of Christian existence, the seer would be affirming that at the most fundamental level of reality there is an eternal, fixed metaphysical dualism. Such a view is antithetical to John's. Only God is Pantocrator (eg., 11:17), and the kingdom of this world has always been, however implicitly, the kingdom of the creator God (see 4:11, 11:15). The syntax and liturgical setting of 11:15 underscore that there is no spatial or temporal dualism between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. God creates and sustains all things. Transformations and changes permeate every boundary and break down every distinction because there is an underlying dynamic system into and out of which all distinctions fold and unfold. God's dynamic power may flow into rebellious vortices and opposing whorls, but ultimately everything and every power derives from and depends upon God. He is the process that binds past, present, and future; heaven, earth, and subterranean demonic forces; faithful followers, apostates, and infidels. For that reason, this monistic flow of divinely ordered being can never quite be compartmentalized into creature and creator, God and Satan, this age and the age to come, or heaven and earth. That is the unbroken world disclosed through the language of the Apocalypse.
This examination of the seer's vision of the world suggests that it does not contain fundamental conflicts. One element or dimension of the vision is not pitted against another; and terms such as conflict, tension, and crisis do not characterize his vision. Revelation discloses in its depth or innerness a wholeness of vision consonant with the intertexture found at the surface level of his language. At all levels signifiers, signifieds, deep structures, and surface structures form homologies, not contradictory oppositions. The logic of the vision does not progress from oppositions to their resolution. Rather, in all its aspects the language speaks from unbroken wholeness to unbroken wholeness.
Notes
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On other external evidence for dating Revelation to the reigns of Trajan, Claudius, Nero, or Domitian, see Charles 1920, 1:xci-xciii. Charles notes, “The earliest authorities are practically unanimous in assigning the Apocalypse to the last years of Domitian” (1:xcii).
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Irenaeus does not mention any kind of persecution at this time, but many scholars have taken his witness as fitting with evidences of persecution in the Book of Revelation (e.g., Kümmel 1975, 467).
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See also Eus. Hist. Eccl. [Historia Ecclesia] 3.39; 4.18; 5.8, 18; 6.25; 7.25.
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For a full discussion of the evidence see Canfield 1913, 74-76.
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In the following paragraphs I present the point of view of most scholars toward Domitian. This view does not take into account several difficult historiographic problems. For a detailed discussion and reassessment of Domitian's reign, see chapter 6.
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On the use of “signs” in the imperial cult see Scherrer 1984, 599-610.
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Contrast Rissi 1966, 80: “It is striking that in the whole context no word is spoken of the emperor cult, which shows that it did not yet play any role for Christians in Asia Minor at the time of the book's writing.” Rissi argues for a dating of the original apocalypse under Vespasian.
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See Charles: “Our author from his ascetic standpoint had sympathized with Domitian's decree, which according to its own claims was directed against luxury, and was accordingly the more indignant when it was recalled” (1920, 1:167-68).
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See Collins 1984a, 2-8 and Aune 1986, 66-76 for some of the most important issues involved in the question of genre in general and specifically the genre “apocalypse.” Hellholm (1983) discusses genre issues in apocalypticism in the whole of the Mediterranean world as well as the Near East. Sometimes generic classifications take some odd twists. Walter Schmithals, for example, argues that John's Revelation does not reflect “the apocalyptic understanding of existence at all” (Schmithals 1975, 169-71). For him, then, the Apocalypse—the source for delineating apocalyptic literature—does not embody apocalyptic thinking. The Apocalypse is not apocalyptic! We should also be wary of identifying the genre “apocalypse” with the meaning of the word as it has entered into popular U.S. culture, that is, as a way of describing totally destructive and horrible occurrences. Ancient apocalypses may include descriptions of horror in the future, but that is not their most salient feature.
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There are also apocalyptic elements in parts of some books, e.g., Mark 13; 2 Thess. 2; and sections of some Hebrew prophets.
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Vielhauer treats the social setting of apocalypses only briefly and tentatively. He reviews the possibility of Iranian influence, the continuity between apocalypses and prophecy, connections with the wisdom tradition, and possible links to Qumran. He assumes cautiously that apocalypses arose “in those eschatologically-excited circles which were forced more and more by the theocracy into a kind of conventicle existence” (1965, 598).
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For more detailed reviews see Hartman 1983, Olsson 1983, and Sanders 1983 (from the 1979 Uppsala Conference published in Hellholm 1983); Collins 1984a, 1-32; and Collins 1984b, 2-5.
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An introduction and English translation of this whole work is readily available in Isaac 1983.
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For a recent commentary see Collins 1984b.
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On the transmission of the text of 4 Ezra and its relation to other writings associated with Ezra, see Metzger 1983, 516.
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See Hanson 1976, 28-30; Collins 1984a, 1-11; Collins 1979, 3-4.
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Schmithals 1975, 42-43, 77, 81. Schmithals thus contrasts apocalyptic eschatology with both prophetic theology in the Old Testament where the god acts in history and Christian salvation where the savior once again takes a place in history (pp. 159-160, 171). Few scholars would agree with this radical differentiation of apocalyptic eschatology from prophetic and Christian eschatologies. See Rowland 1982, 29; Bloch 1952.
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On the similarities between rabbinical writings and apocalypses see Bloch 1952, 73-82, 89-111.
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For a critique of this notion of social change see Tilly 1984, 33-56.
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On the appeal to contemporary millenarian movements see, e.g., Wilson 1982.
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I adapt material from Collins 1984a, 142-154.
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For example, so far as we know the frightful conditions surrounding the war with Rome did not immediately produce any apocalypses even though Rabban ben Zakkai certainly had interest in a speculative mysticism that is related closely to apocalyptic thought (see Rowland 1982, 282).
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So an apocalyptic attitude toward the world cannot be explained as a product of an essential development within Judaic prophetism or wisdom, as a conglomerate of Jewish and Iranian conceptions, or as an outgrowth of either a particular social reality or a new social, political, or psychological situation (Schmithals 1975, 118-20, 127, 130, 145, 148).
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Schmithal quotes with approval the following explanation of apocalyptic from Rudolf Otto: “This removal of the world from the direct sphere of divine control has been traced back to the political conditions of late Judaism. There are no proofs. Rather it seems to me that the operative factor was an idea necessary to religion, and necessarily pressing its way more definitely into consciousness, viz. the idea of the transcendence of the divine over all that is of this world” (1975, 150).
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The “idea of the transcendence of the divine” is detachable not only from every “social reality” but also from the language that expresses it. For Schmithals language objectifies an understanding of existence that in some essential way remains independent of its linguistic objectification. So he asserts that in spite of the “fundamentally different understanding of the world and of existence” in Iranian and apocalyptic pieties, they are objectified in “widely identical conceptual material” (1975, 122). Searches for the origins of a religious movement only yield information about the language used to objectify piety, not piety itself (see pp. 118-19, 130). So neither prophetism, wisdom, nor Iranian religion “represent[s] the sum of” apocalyptic piety, “even though apocalyptic is presented objectively as a combination of Old Testament-prophetic and Iranian elements with additions provided by the Wisdom movement” (pp. 138-39).
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“What counts is not a neutral observer's view of whether things are good or bad,” writes Nickelsburg, “but the apocalyptist's perception and experience that the times are critical” (1983, 646); and Collins states, “We must also reckon with the fact that what is perceived as a crisis by an apocalyptic author cannot always be accepted as objective reality” (1984a, 30). The combination in one phrase of one term referring to a social, historical situation (crisis) and one referring to an attitude of mind (perceived) is tricky. “Crisis” appears only through perception. Without perception there is no crisis. The issue, then, is not perception over against a social, historical reality but perception over against perception, i.e., “perceived crisis” over against “perceived noncrisis.” Further, in most cases, the perception is not a private, individual matter but an element within a social, symbolic construction, so that the issue becomes how one group (however defined) perceives over against how another group perceives. Finally, as we shall seek to show later, “perceptions” do not exist “outside,” but are part of the social, historical network.
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If “crisis” or “perceived crisis” continues to be important in studies of apocalypticism, “crisis” should be more precisely defined than is now the case. Billings and colleagues (1980), for example, consider “perceived value of possible loss,” “perceived probability of loss,” and “perceived time pressure” as three key elements in defining the extent of perceived crisis; they contrast these elements with those which Hermann had proposed earlier—“threat,” “decision time,” and “surprise.” Billings's shift to perceptual elements in crisis is typical of recent research, but it assumes the curious ontology that there is always out there an untouched “thing in itself”: “Crisis is defined by a set of variables as perceived by the decision maker. These perceptions may differ from the objective situation or from the perceptions of others” (1980, 306).
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Speech need not take the form of propositions and assertions. It may express affective dimensions of a relationship, e.g., comforting, lamenting, or assuring. It may express injunctions—“Remain faithful,” “Keep steadfast.” It may create self-contained aesthetic objects, as in certain kinds of poetry (see Guiraud 1975, 5-15). In every case, however, language shapes our perception of reality, which always includes a social component.
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Cf. Austin 1962, 114; Skinner 1969, 45-48; Hartman 1983, 334-35.
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In the language of Quentin Skinner, they must draw on a socially conventional intention, one “within a given and established range of acts which can be conventionally grasped as being [a case] of that intention” (1970, 133). Searle also emphasizes that “in our analysis of illocutionary acts, we must capture both the intentional and the conventional aspects and especially the relationship between them” (Giglioli 1982, 145). In the Daniel example, Lacocque's observation that the Hebrew preposition I is used rather than qdm may be seen as a clue to the social convention there used (1979, 116).
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Illocutionary elements are located publicly in written or spoken language available to all and are distinct from the question of authorial intention if such is seen as an intentionality located in the mind of the speaker or writer. Presumably, the shared social covention expresses an authorial intention, but we can never have absolute certainty about the exact relation of the typical and the specific. “Social conventions” express typicalities, but situations are both specific and typical. In the case of Daniel, I do not assume that we have a report of historical occurrence; I am interested only in the dynamics of the conversational situation; they are the same for “fiction” and “history.”
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That is, at the level of genre a sentence, scene, or vision becomes a formal unit, not a unit of meaning. So Benveniste: “The form of a linguistic unit is defined as its capacity for being broken down into constituents of a lower level” (1971, 107).
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The prominence of a theology of creation also assures this interplay between transcendent realities and the social order, social institutions, and social norms.
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Hellholm returns “form critical analysis” to its beginnings when formal characteristics, common thoughts and moods, and similar life situations all contributed to the definition of genre (1986, 26). He developes genre analysis from a linguistics approach that can consider sequential aspects of a text as well as a hierarchical listing of generic characteristics. That approach opens new possibilities for describing and defining a genre, but see Yarbro Collins' cautionary remarks (1986, 3-4). Except for the reference to a group in crisis, Hellholm's description of intention is similar to that of John J. Collins: “The intention of an apocalypse then is to provide a view of the world that will be a source of consolation in the face of distress and a support and authorization for whatever course of action is recommended, and to invest this worldview with the status of supernatural revelation. The worldview may or may not serve as the ideology of a movement or group” (1984b, 22).
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See Hartman's reflections on the Semeia 14 definition of genre: “It seems to me, though, that the time has come to deepen the analysis and to take into account as exactly as possible the hierarchic structure and literary function of the propositional elements, the illocution of the texts, and their sociolinguistic functions” (1983, 339).
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It refers, for example, to shared beliefs and new assertions about the world; to injunctive, affective, and aesthetic elements; to self-authenticating intentions; to devices of reactualization and participation; or to its social conventions and illocutionary force—all of which are to be considered in relation to genre, not as assertion on the sentence level.
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Structural analysis of the Lévi-Strauss variety usually presupposes conflict at the “deep” level; for the purpose of mythic language is to resolve fundamental contradictions in our experience and understanding of the world that otherwise cannot be resolved. According to structural analysis if such conflicts did not exist, mythic language would have no purpose: “Mythic thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution” (Lévi-Strauss 1967, 221).
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Those differences depend, of course, on the particular world construction.
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Generally speaking, trees and plant life are classified with redeemed humans under divine care. See Rev. 7:1, 9:4; cf. 8:7, where judgments from heaven do harm the plants. At 14:17-20 vine and the grape are used as symbols of judgment.
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E.g., ἐκ πάσηs ϕυλη̑s καὶ γλώσσηs καὶ λαου̑ καὶ ἔθουs (Rev. 5:9).
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They are thus offered as sacrifices to the sacrificial Lamb as well as to God.
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Rev. 1:6. For Christ as priest, note the garb in 1:13 where Daniel 10 has been modified. Schüssler Fiorenza comments, “These explicit changes of the Daniel text seem to stress Christ's royal/priestly character” (1981, 53).
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The “brightness” (λαμπρόν) of the linen is also a quality of the river of life (22:1) and the morning star (22:16).
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See also the “golden girdles,” which only the seven angels with the seven last plagues and the one like a Son of Man wear (Rev. 15:6, 1:13, cf. 5:8, 8:3).
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Here there is a play on the verb μολύνω which means both “soiled” and “defiled,” like the English word stained (see Rev. 14:4, “those not stained [i.e., defiled] with women”). The soiled clothing contrasts with the clean clothing worn by the Bride of the Lamb, the seven angels, and the warring army mentioned above.
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Contrast Babylon the Whore who wears fine linen, but in purple and scarlet (Rev. 17:3-4, 18:16).
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The connection between Rev. 9:11 and 17:8 is made even firmer by the fact that Abaddon (9:11) is translated in the Septuagint as ὀπώλεια; cf. Job 26:6, 28:22; Ps. 88:11; Prov. 15:11. Abaddon parallels death, the grave, and Sheol.
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That throne is given to the beast by the dragon (Rev. 13:2).
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Cf. Rev. 13:14, 19:20; also the sequencing of dragon and beasts at 12:1-13:18, 16:13, and 20:10.
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ϕυλακή (wilderness, or desert) and abyss function homologously in various religious structures; see Thompson 1978, 95.
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On the surface level those conflicting oppositions support the structuralist notion that opposition and conflict are fundamental to the seer's world; for clearly demarcated boundaries separate the faithful from evil forces.
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ὠs ἐσϕαγμένην or ἐσϕαγμένον.
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In each case the verb is ἔζησεν. There are two renditions of the beast's wound: that he had a mortal wound that was healed (Rev. 13:3, 12) and that he had a wound from a sword and lived (13:14).
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πνευματικω̑s and other terms based on the root meaning of “spirit” function throughout the Apocalypse as transformational agents.
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Jeremiah warns that Jerusalem will become a “desert” (Jer. 22:6, cf. Rev. 18:19). Thus the transformation of Jerusalem into wilderness, evil, and chaos is also a part of the prophetic tradition. In Rev. 18:2 the great Babylon becomes a ϕυλακή, a haunt of every unclean demon, spirit, bird, and beast, reminiscent of descriptions of the desert (see Thompson 1978, 95-96).
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It does not indicate that from the seer's point of view the city as such “is the social and political embodiment of human self-sufficiency and rebellion against God” (Sweet 1979, 187).
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Wilderness—like chaos and Egypt—thus reflects in the Apocalypse its place in prophetic tradition: to return to the wilderness is to be judged and punished (Rev. 17:16), but wilderness is also the setting for divine deliverance and nourishment from God (12:6, cf. Thompson 1978, 193).
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Πνευ̑μα is also associated with transformations connected with cultic time (Rev. 1:10), resurrection (11:11), and prophecy (19:10). At 11:8 nominal transformation is designated by the adverb πνευματικω̑s. Typological and allegorical exegesis may thus be seen as a form of spiritual transformation.
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Note also at Rev. 15:5-8 the polysemantic character of smoke as wrath (θυμόs) and as glory (δόξα).
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Aναβαι̑νον is used to indicate the beasts coming up from the sea (Rev. 13:1) and the earth (13:11); κλει̑ν, ἔβαλεν, ἔκλεισεν, ἐσϕράγισεν, λυθη̑ναι, λυθήσεται, εξελεύσεται, refer to Satan's movement in and out of the bottomless pit (20:1-3, 7).
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The “firstborn from the dead,” for example, has the keys to Death and Hades (1:18) and can thereby control death and life.
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On the insertion of another myth at Rev. 12:7-12, see Court 1979, 112-15; Schüssler Fiorenza 1981, 124-25.
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That judicial dimension of the divine needs to be taken seriously in any study of the important theme of justice in Revelation.
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Generally speaking, “descent,” in the Apocalypse, results in loss—destruction, judgment, moral decline, death—whereas “ascent” signifies deliverance, moral perfection, and life.
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Proper identification is further complicated by eschatological reversals whereby greatness is brought low—even to be no more—and lowliness is transformed into greatness (e.g., Rev. 7:9-17, 18:21, 19:2). Such transformational reversals occur in the text through cultic liturgies as well as symbols of clothing, color, and ascent.
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See Schüssler Fiorenza: “Only when we acknowledge that Revelation hopes for the conversion of the nations, in response to the Christian witness and preaching, will we be able to see that it does not advocate a ‘theology of resentment’ but a theology of justice” (1981, 119); Contrast Yarbro Collins 1984, 170.
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On “first” see Rev. 20:5 (the “first resurrection”) or 22:13, where God declares himself to be “the first and the last.” Disappear or pass away (ἀπέρχομαι) is used to describe—among other things—“woes” (9:12, 11:14), the fruit for which Babylon longs (18:14), and the dragon (12:17). Rev. 16:2 (ἀπη̑λθεν ὁ πρω̑τοs), referring to the first of the seven angels, reads strikingly similar to 21:4 (τὰ πρω̑ταἀπη̑λθαν).
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In the Apocalypse “newness” is written (Rev. 2:17, 3:12), sung (5:9, 14:3), seen (21:1, 2) and done (21:5).
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This blurring of old age and new age has its counterpart in the syntax of the book: as we have seen, the seer has not organized his material along a strong narrative line with an appropriate climax at the end. Rather, there is repetition, concentric movement, and ever-widening circularity.
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For example, there are two clearly defined types of “servant parables” as well as the obvious generic differences between the narrative of the Passion and apocalytic sections; see Thompson 1978, 256-61.
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Organic change is an essential element in all world building. We are constantly adapting to different environmental conditions, roles, religious, and philosophical understandings. In spite of this change, a person's world does not usually crumble: modifications occur, contours of the world change; but boundaries and distinctions are observed.
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In both Rev. 11:1 and 21:15 κάλαμοs is used for “measuring rod.”
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See also Zech. 2:1-5, where measuring Jerusalem reflects its sacredness. On other possible meanings of measuring see Court 1979, 86.
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Cf. the derivation of such terms as medicine, moderation, and meditation from the root “to measure.” In every instance, an inner measure and harmony are assumed; see Bohm 1983, 20. The association of measuring with rebuilding, restoring, judgment, destruction, and preservation is secondary to this inner/outer correspondence.
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Schüssler Fiorenza suggests that the difference in proportion “indicates that the universal cosmic salvation by far exceeds that prefigured in the Church” (1981, 205).
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“Fall” and “repentance” are contrasted at Rev. 2:5.
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The Bride of the Lamb forms a homology with faithful Christians; probably, therefore, the seer is comfortable with faithful Christians' participating in “proper” sexual relations. The virgins on Mount Zion in chapter 14 would then be viewed as a special group, not representative of all Christians.
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Cf. the two lists of vices: δειλοι̑s, ἀπίστοιs, ἐβδελυγμένοιs, ϕονευ̑σιν, πόρνοιs, ϕαρμάκοιs, εἰδωλολάτραιs, and ψευδέσιν (Rev. 21:8); κύνεs, ϕαρμακοί, πόρνοι, ϕονει̑s, εἰδωλολάτραι, πα̑s ϕιλω̑ν καὶ ποιω̑ν ψευ̑δοs (22:15).
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As pointed out above, all Christians share royal and priestly attributes with Christ.
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The social boundary that keeps the Christian pure from acculturation and assimilation reveals through its various homologues and contrarieties a fundamental structure in John's world. Social forces external to the church do not occasion that boundary or any other; rather, they unfold one dimension of the essential order in the seer's world.
Abbreviations
Loeb refers to editions in the Loeb Library series of Greek and Latin texts with facing translations. Ante-Nicene refers to translations in the Ante-Nicene Fathers series. All other editions are specified by date and/or editor's name.
Ap. Abraham: Apocalypse of Abraham (Charlesworth, 1983)
Apol. Tyan. Ep.: Apollonius of Tyana, Letters (Loeb, see Philostr. VA)
Apul. Met.: Apuleius, Metamorphoses (Golden Ass) (Loeb)
Aug. Conf.: Augustine, Confessions (Loeb)
Barn.: Epistle of Barnabas (Ante-Nicene)
Cic. Flac.: Cicero, Pro Flacco (Loeb)
Cic. Leg. Man.: Cicero, Pro Lege Manilia (Loeb)
CIG: Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (1828-77)
CIJ: Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum (1952)
CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (1863-)
1 Cl.: First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (Ante-Nicene)
Corp. Jur. Civ.: Civil Law (S. Scott, 1932)
Dessau, ILS: H. Dessau, Inscriptions Latinae Selectai (1892-1916)
Did.: Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) (Ante-Nicene)
Dig. Just.: Justinian Digest (see Corp. Jur. Civ.)
Dio Cass.: Dio Cassius, Roman History (Loeb)
Dio Chrys. Or.: Dio Chrysostom, Orations (Discourses) (Loeb)
Dittenberg. SIG: W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3rd ed., 1915-24)
1 Enoch: 1 Enoch (Charlesworth, 1983)
2 Enoch: 2 Enoch (Charlesworth, 1983)
3 Enoch: 3 Enoch (Charlesworth, 1983)
Eus. Eccl. Hist.: Eusebius, Ecclesiatical History (Loeb)
4 Ezra: 4 Ezra (Charlesworth, 1983)
Frontin. Aq.: Frontinus, Aqueducts of Rome (Loeb)
Frontin. Str.: Frontinus, Strategems (Loeb)
IG: Inscriptiones Graecae (1873-)
IG Rom.: Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes (1906-)
I Magn.: Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians (Ante-Nicene)
I Philad.: Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians (Ante-Nicene)
I Polyc.: Ignatius, Epistle to Polycarp (Ante-Nicene)
Iren. Haer.: Irenaeus, Against heresies (Ante-Nicene)
I Rom.: Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans (Ante-Nicene)
I Smyrn.: Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyrnians (Ante-Nicene)
Joseph. AJ: Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (Loeb)
Joseph. Ap.: Josephus, Against Apion (Loeb)
Joseph. Vit.: Josephus, Life (Loeb)
Just. 1 Apol.: Justin Martyr, First Apology (Ante-Nicene)
Just. Dia. Tryph.: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (Ante-Nicene)
Juv.: Juvenal, Satires (Loeb)
MAMA: Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiquae (1928-39)
Mart.: Martial, Epigrams (Loeb)
Mart. Polyc.: Martyrdom of Polycarp (Ante-Nicene)
Mart. Spect.: Martial, Spectacles (Loeb)
OGI: Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae (1903-5)
Philo Leg.: Philo, Embassy to Gaius (Loeb)
Philostr. VA: Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Loeb)
Philostr. VS: Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists (Loeb)
Plin. Ep.: Pliny the Younger, Letters (Loeb)
Plin. HN: Pliny the Elder, Natural History (Loeb)
Plin. Pan.: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus (Loeb)
Polyc. Phil.: Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians (Ante-Nicene)
POxy.: Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Grenfell & Hunt, 1898-)
Quint. Inst.: Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria (Loeb)
SEG: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (1923-)
Sib Or.: Sibylline Oracles (Charlesworth, 1983)
Sil. Pun.: Silius Italicus, Punica (Loeb)
Stat. Achil.: Statius, Achilleid (Loeb)
Stat. Silv.: Statius, Silvae (Loeb)
Suet. Dom.: Suetonius, Domitian (Loeb)
Suet. Galb.: Suetonius, Galba (Loeb)
Suet. Ner.: Suetonius, Nero (Loeb)
Suet. Tit.: Suetonius, Deified Titus (Loeb)
Suet. Vesp.: Suetonius, Deified Vespasian (Loeb)
Tac. Agr.: Tacitus, Agricola (Loeb)
Tac. Ann.: Tacitus, Annals (Loeb)
Tac. Germ.: Tacitus, Germania (Loeb)
Tac. Hist.: Tacitus, Histories (Loeb)
Tert. Ad Scap.: Tertullian, To Scapula (Ante-Nicene)
Tert. Apol.: Tertullian, Apology (Ante-Nicene, Loeb)
Carn.: Tertullian, Flesh of Christ (Ante-Nicene)
Test. Sol.: Testament of Solomon (in Charlesworth, 1983)
Ulp.: Ulpian (see Corp. Jur. Civ.)
Works Cited
Aune, David E. 1981. “The Social Matrix of the Apocalypse of John.” Biblical Research 24:16-32.
———. 1986a. “The Apocolypse of John and the Problem of Genre.” Semeia 36:65-96.
Austin, John L. 1962. How To Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Introduction to Revelation: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
The Revelation to John: A Case Study in Apocalyptic Propaganda and the Maintenance of Sectarian Identity
